Clay Clark | Business Conference | How to Create a Proforma? Why Does Every Business Need a Proforma to Grow & Scale? + 2 Clay Clark Client Case Studies + Join Tim Tebow At Clay Clark’s December 5-6 Business Growth Workshop!

Audio Transcription

Clay Clark is here somewhere. Where’s my buddy Clay? Clay is the greatest. I met his goats today, I met his dogs, I met his chickens, I saw his compound. He’s like the greatest guy. I ran from his goats, his chickens, his dogs. So this guy is like the greatest marketer you’ve ever seen, right? His entire life, Clay Clark, his entire life is marketing. 4,000% from February to February. Now I can better that. Okay, Clay, I don’t think you know this. I don’t think you know this. I’m pinching myself and if I cry, forgive me. In the last two and a half days, we have bettered our entire month of February in the last two and a half days. So, and the phone’s blowing up. Everything’s just blowing up. Well, you’re right, it is like a rocket ship. So we’re pinching ourselves Actually, I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York octa nonverba Watch what a person does Not what they say you could be anywhere doing a lot of different things, but you chose to be here And you chose to go somewhere you said man I can go and I can get better. I can go and I can learn. I can go and I can maybe go from where I’m at to where I want to go. But one of the most important things that you will ever do or not do in your life is to value and seek wise counsel. To be coached hard means you have to be willing to be uncomfortable. Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to the show. But this show does. In a world filled with endless opportunities, why would two men who have built 13 multi-million dollar businesses altruistically invest five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use? Because they believe in you. And they have a lot of time on their hands. They started from the bottom, now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show starring the former U.S. Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body, Dr. Robert Zillner. Two men, eight kids, co-created by two different women, 13 multi-million dollar businesses. I’m the good news, as the father of five, that’s why I’m alive So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi It’s the C and Z up on your radio And now 3, 2, 1, here we go! We started from the bottom, now we’re here We started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get there We started from the bottom, now we’re here We started from the bottom, now we’re here 3, 2, 1, boom! We started from the bottom, now we’re here It’s the only way to get there. It’s the only way to get there. It’s the only way to get there. Welcome back to the Thrive Time Show on your radio and podcast download. For anybody listening from Portland, Oregon, hello and welcome to another fabulous edition of the Thrive Time Show. Today we’re talking about creating a detailed pro forma for quoting, a detailed pro forma for your business. And so, before we get into how to do this, I want to start with Marshall Morris, the co-author of the best-selling book, Start Here, which all the listeners can download for free at Thrivetimeshow.com. Marshall, what is a pro forma, and why does every business owner need to make a pro forma? Okay, so a pro forma is a document that you’re going to use as a budget. Use it as a proactive planning tool in order to get your numbers right, be proactive about your numbers, and basically structure how your business should run. Everybody needs one because when you use a pro forma, when you use a budget, it’s like creating a dashboard. It’s telling your money where to go rather than just recognizing where it went or maybe using it like a rear view mirror. This is something that’s typical that most accountants would provide for you to help set up a proactive business like our show sponsor, Paul Hood of Hood CPAs. Ooh. Now, I’ll kind of explain a performer like this. It’s basically a projection of future financial performance based upon known variables. So as an example, when I used to run a company called DJ Connection, I knew that it would cost me approximately, if we did a wedding for $600, I knew it would cost me approximately $50 to book the wedding. You might say, $50 to book the wedding? What do you mean? I mean we would have to spend $50 on advertisement on average to get one booked wedding, one new show, 50. I also knew that after paying the sales commissions, paying the DJ, paying for equipment maintenance and all the costs, our total profit would be about $167 per event. $167 per event. So then when I thought about my financial goals, okay, my first financial goal was to make $100,000 a year. And for those of you listening, you might go, well, that’s really a pretty weak goal. Well, good, good, good, good deal. I’m glad that you have defined my goals as being weak. That’s fine. But here’s the deal. It took me about six years to get to that goal. And so I had to take $100,000 and I divide that by 167, and I’ll do it right now. And that comes out to, let’s see here, the key is you’ve got to put it into the calculator correctly. Oh, yes, that’s right. You’ve got to write numbers and user error. 598 weddings. How many I had to do? I had to do 598 weddings per year to achieve my goal. 3, 2, 1, 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 Talk Radio 1170. It’s me and Clay, broadcaster from the Fox and the 9-1-8. Business school and the topic today. Check the silver buses getting you paid. Making the business boom is what we do. You can do it, that’s my show. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show on your radio and podcast download. For anybody listening from Portland, Oregon, hello and welcome to another fabulous edition of the Thrive Time Show. Today we’re talking about creating a detailed pro forma for quoting, a detailed pro forma for your business. And so, before we get into how to do this, I want to start with Marshall Morris, the co-author of the best-selling book, Start Here, which all the listeners can download for free at Thrivetimeshow.com. Marshall, what is a pro forma and why does every business owner need to make a pro forma? Okay, so a pro forma is a document that you’re going to use as a budget. Use it as a proactive planning tool in order to get your numbers right, be proactive about your numbers, and basically structure how your business should run. Everybody needs one because when you use a pro forma, when you use a budget, it’s like creating a dashboard. It’s telling your money where to go rather than just recognizing where it went or maybe using it like a rear view mirror. This is something that’s typical that most accountants would provide for you to help set up a proactive business like our show sponsor, Paul Hood of Hood CPAs. Ooh. Now, I’ll kind of explain a performer like this. It’s basically a projection of future financial performance based upon known variables. As an example, when I used to run a company called DJ Connection. I knew that it would cost me approximately, if we did a wedding for $600, I knew it would cost me approximately $50 to book the wedding. You might say, $50 to book the wedding? What do you mean? I mean we would have to spend $50 on advertisement on average to get one booked wedding, one new show, 50. I also knew that after paying the sales commissions, paying the DJ, paying for equipment maintenance, and all the costs, our total profit would be about $167 per event. $167 per event. So then when I thought about my financial goals, my first financial goal was to make $100,000 a year. And for those of you listening, you might go, well, that’s really a pretty weak goal. Well, good, good, good, good deal. I’m glad that you have defined my goals as being weak. That’s fine, but here’s the deal. It took me about six years to get to that goal. And so I had to take $100,000 and divide that by $167,000, and I’ll do it right now. And that comes out to, let’s see here, the key is you’ve got to put it into the calculator correctly. Oh, yes, that’s right. User error. 598 weddings. How many I had to do 598 weddings per year to achieve my goals. Now if you divide 598 by 52, typically there’s 52 weeks in a year. I knew I needed to do 11 weddings per week to hit my goals. And so that was a huge thing when that happened. I remember when we hit 11 weddings per week, nobody else cared, but I did because I was keeping score and I knew that I had to get to 11 weddings a week. So I’m asking you right now, the listener, what number do you have to get to per week? What number do you have to get to per week just to break even? What number do you have to get to per week to achieve your goals? And, Chuck, I think one of the reasons why business coaching clients struggle before they hire us, before we help them, is that they’re not staying on top of their numbers. And so they don’t stay on top of their numbers, they don’t know their numbers, and ultimately over time, they scale a fail. Yeah, and I’ve been working with quite a few clients over this right now, kind of finding that per product profit, finding out what their average ticket price is over a multi-month long period, so you can have a good average of that. And the cool thing is, I’ve talked about this before on the show, but once you know some of these numbers, it gets really fun. Right. You know where you’re going. You’re driving on a highway with a map. You’re not just out there freaking out every day. And so once you realize, like you just said, $167, all right, let’s scale that. Let’s multiply that out and see where we need to get to get our goals. So here are the biggest issues I see with business owners out there as far as it relates to their numbers that I want to help you with right now. One is just not knowing your numbers. And if you don’t know your numbers, reach out to your business coach and say, hey, I don’t know my numbers. And you know what? If you do know your numbers, you’re like in the top 10% of business owners. I’m telling you, sincerely, 90% of the clients that I’ve worked with, and I’m talking big business and small business, they do not know their numbers. The second biggest issue I see is that business owners are acting like a bank when they really shouldn’t be. Oh my gosh, say that again. Business owners are acting like a bank when they really shouldn’t be. So I’ll give an example. Today, if time allows, I’m gonna go to Lowe’s and I’m gonna buy a fire extinguisher. No way. Another one? Yeah, I mean, yeah, it’s a thing I’m gonna do. I try to, I try to kind of like a hot streak where once a week I’m going right now. For a while, I was planting one tree every week. And I’ll start that again soon, but I’m going to probably go there and get a fire extinguisher. Now I have a Lowe’s card, and you might say, why do you have a Lowe’s card? Because I like to buy things on my Lowe’s card and then pay it off. And then buy it and pay it off. And it builds credit by doing that, so therefore you’re establishing, building credit. I like to buy things and pay it off. But Lowe’s they’re supplying me credit. But how big is Lowe’s? They’re pretty big, right? If you look into Lowe’s and you say let’s deep dive into Lowe’s. Let’s go to Guitar Center. Guitar Center. I love to buy things at Guitar Center. And if today goes well I’m gonna go buy some things at Guitar Center. I go every week to buy things at Guitar Center. When I go in there I’m kinda looking around going what do they have that I need? Lighting, cables? Yeah, I’ll probably get some lighting or cables. It’s just a fun place to go. The sales team scrambles whenever they see you walk in. So you go in there. Good team, go! And I have a Guitar Center card. Now, you might say, why do you buy things on the Guitar Center card? Because again, I buy things, I pay it off, which builds and continues to build credit. Now here’s the thing about Guitar Center. Guitar Center’s credit is not provided, Chup, by Guitar Center. It’s provided by Synchrony Bank. And you see the secret. If you go to a Hahn Appliance, I love to go to Hahn Appliance and buy things using my Hahn card. And I pay it off. And you know what? Their credit is provided by Synchrony. And the key point of that is that it’s Synchrony Bank. Synchrony Bank. If you go to a local doctor’s office and you want to get like cosmetic dentistry done or cosmetic surgery or some elective procedure, you know there’s a thing called Care Credit. Yeah. And it’s a credit company. So a lot of business owners out there, you’re acting like a bank but you’re not a bank. So we would highly recommend that you would establish relationships with third-party credit providers so when your customer says, hey, can I do some financing terms here for this home remodel project? You could say, absolutely. Why don’t you apply here? When they apply, then they’re applying not to get credit from you, but from a third-party credit provider. I’m going to give you an example. If you’re installing pools, pools like a swimming pool, so I’ll put in swimming pool credit. I’m going to go and find the company. We’ll put it on the show notes here. We have HF s Financial eight there we go. I see them coming. This is swimming pool and spa Financing oh, I love these guys. It’s a niche right there. That’s a new. Yeah, it’s a thing I mean, that’s a you know there it is HFS financial. Let’s do another one Let’s look let’s look for one more because this is helping somebody out there, and here’s the thing is there. Here’s the thing, is with all of these different companies, there’s still an application process. This is what I see, is I see business owners out there, they’re going and allowing longer payment terms, extending credit themselves, and they may not recognize that they’re extending credit, but whenever you go provide service without any type of payment form on file for them, that is exactly what you’re doing. And if you do that without any kind of application process of how good is this business’s credit, how likely are they to pay off what they owe me? If you don’t do that process, then you’re overextending yourself, you’re gonna run into cash flow problems, you don’t have cash coming in, and that’s a huge problem. And so, Clay, for the person that doesn’t recognize their extending credit or how to stop this if maybe historically, maybe there’s a business owner saying, oh my gosh, that’s me, I’ve been doing this. How do you make the switch with all of the clients that maybe you’ve done this historically with? Okay, here’s what you’re gonna do, and I’m gonna give you a lot of action items here. If you are listening at home, I want you to take a lot of notes. We are gonna put these on the show notes, though. If you go to thrivetimeshow.com, you’ll be able to click on the podcast button, you will find all of these show notes. Step number one is you need to stop acting like a bank unless you are a bank. If you are not a bank, what you want to do moving forward is you want to establish a relationship with a third-party credit provider today, this week. Get it done. That way when somebody says to you, I would like to get credit, you say, no problem. If you’ll apply right here on my iPad. Bring the iPad with you to the meeting with the client and say, go ahead and apply here right now. And then we’ll see what you get approved for. If you go to Mathis Brothers Furniture, they do that. If you go to almost any Best Buy does this. I mean, that’s what you do. Then when the person gets denied or accepted, right there you go, OK, it looks like you’re approved up to $21,000. Let’s make it happen. Oh, it looks like you’re denied. So we’re going to have to go ahead and not be able to do it today. I want to cut in here, because I’ve had conversations before where people have said, yeah, but if they get denied the credit, then I can’t sell them the deal. When they shouldn’t have the deal, they get denied. If these major companies are shutting them down, then you definitely should not be approving that person. You definitely don’t want to work with them. You’re not going to get paid. That’s the point. Now, the next step you want to do is, if you’re a company that doesn’t want to get third-party credit you just want to charge deposits like a retainer upfront so with the DJ business the typical wedding that I booked was about $600 and we required a deposit of $250 so $250 down $250 is paid up front and the remaining 350 is not due until the day of the wedding that allowed us to have good cash flow good income consistency of income. It allowed the customer to pay for it over time. And we had collateral because we weren’t going to DJ your wedding until you had paid. So that’s a move. And what are the expenses that came out of that $250? Because this will help you identify how big of a deposit you need to charge, but what are the expenses that immediately come out once you book a deal? What are some of those things? I had to make sure that we were able to pay for the ongoing advertisement, because it was definitely $50 a wedding. It was like $57, I think it was, like $56, $57. I can’t remember. I don’t have it in front of me. It was years ago. But, I mean, we were doing a lot of advertising in Yellow Pages and bridal shows and starting to advertise online back in the day, doing a lot of magazines, a lot of print pieces, a lot of mailers. And it came out to $50 per wedding in advertising. Plus we had to pay the sales guys. That’s what I was going to ask. Did you pay them with a deposit? Yeah, I paid the sales guys up front whenever we got the deposit. So looming. I had the commissions paid up front. I had the advertising. I also had the ongoing cost of the lease of the office. Our expenses. I just want to give you a notable quotable from Bill Gates. This is the co-founder of MicroSoft. Yeah, we know windows. He says knowing your numbers is a fundamental precept of Business and I’m saying to you as the velocity of the money increases The numbers have to be tight if you don’t nail it and then you scale it you will fail it You might impale it. Oh, no, you might derail it. You might just You might be living in a van down, you know, kind of right there by the Thrive offices and a van down by the river. It’s a nice beachfront property, but you probably wouldn’t want to live there. But another notable quotable I want to give to you, and then we’ll talk about this when we come back from the break, is Benjamin Franklin’s shop. Can you read us the Benjamin Franklin notable quotable that the Thrive Nation needs to put into their minds? So Benjamin Franklin says, beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship. Benjamin Franklin is the guy who helped finance the Revolutionary War. He’s the guy who started his own invention business. He invented the Franklin stove, the bifocals, he ran a large newspaper. He knew a little thing about managing money. So again, beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship. Stay tuned, it’s the Thrived Time Show on your radio. one business coach for free by subscribing on iTunes and leaving us an objective review. Claim your tickets by emailing us proof that you did it and your contact information to info at thrive timeshow.com. Welcome back to the conversation. We’re talking about the importance of creating a detailed pro forma for running your business. This is so big because if you don’t have a proforma, you’re going to run your business by guesswork and typically you as an entrepreneur are going to guess optimistically and thus always be tight on cash. And cash is the lifeblood of your business. If you’re out of cash, you’re out of business. So what you have to do is you’ve got to make sure you never run out of oxygen for your business. You never run out of the lifeblood of your business. You never want to run out of water for the business. It’s the basic things needed to make your business grow. It’s cash and you’re going to run out of cash eventually if you don’t implement each and every one of these super moves. The next super move is you want to define your hard costs per job. This is big because if you don’t think about the costs, hard costs, this is the costs that go into every single job. I was just helping a friend of mine the other day. He’s building a limousine company and I’ll walk you through the hard costs. Let’s put that as an example here, Chep, on the show notes there, just so the listeners have a very, very real example. So he has a limousine company. So let’s say, and I don’t know the costs of each and every limo, but let’s just say the cost of finance a limo was $1,000 a month. Does that seem fair, Chuck? Because a limo, you say you buy a limo for a hundred thousand bucks. Yeah. So a hundred, a thousand bucks a month to finance the limo. Now if the average limo rental is $600, you could think, cool man, once you rent a limo twice, we’re making money! Because it only costs a thousand dollars to make the payment on a limo. If we rent it twice, we’re making money. But the problem is, here are all the hard costs associated with each limousine rental. One, you’ve got to pay a driver. The cost of paying the driver per time the driver goes out. I’ll do it myself. But see, that’s not a good idea because then you can’t delegate. See a lot of business owners build their model based on them doing it themselves. So you’ve got to, how much is the driver going to get paid? And if you’re doing it yourself, how much are you going to pay yourself per drive? Second is what’s, what’s that gas cost? The gas for the limo. Then you say, you know, well, okay, we’ve got the gas, got the limo. What about the insurance? And let’s say the insurance payment was $500 a month. We divide that by, you know, how many weeks and how much does it cost per week? Right? So it’d be, do you think about that? What does the insurance cost per time you use the limo? Then what does it cost to park the limo? To store the limo? You might say, well, right now we’re going to put the limos inside the Thrive offices for free. And we would say, that’s good. For free. But what about when it’s not free? What about in two years when Thrive has its own new facility? What about if we move out? Or what about… right? Then you’ve got to think about, okay, what does it cost to pay the person to answer the phone? We’re not going to answer the phone. We’re going to communicate entirely via email. Okay, I doubt that. Then what are you going to pay all of the costs? What are these costs? Think about all these. There’s so many. Taxes. I’m not going to pay taxes. It’s a service business. B.S. You’ve got to pay taxes to what? Get tags on the vehicles. Tags? I don’t want to put tags on the vehicle. What about, I mean, isn’t it tough to work with these company employees? There’s a lot of insurances, there’s taxes, and Marshall, I don’t think hardly any of the clients we’ve ever worked with ever sit down and consider all of these costs. They typically just are very vague and loose with it, and then all of a sudden they run out of cash, Marshall. That’s right. And here’s the thing. The reason why I would say 95% 99% of business owners. Well, Inc. Magazine says 9 out of 10 small business owners fail. Okay. Forbes says 8 out of 10 businesses across the system, new or old, fail. All right. So you’re, you’re, you’re right. So, so if you don’t set aside Time in order to go through it because I’ve never seen this process take less than 12 hours You just got to go through and you got a list out Literally every business expense and know what you’re spending per job because until you do that You are never going to be profitable or if you are bringing in money, you’re not going to know at what margin you’re profitable, and you can’t scale it. I would look at it this way. The song Bohemian Rhapsody. If you ever have a chance to listen to the song Bohemian Rhapsody. This is profound. A lot of people don’t realize that this song was done by Queen, but the actual length of the song, this is a deep thought. I was a former DJ, so I’m just telling you this is the thing. The song, it’s pretty long. You know, it’s a pretty long song and that song I mean, it’s gonna go seven eight minutes I mean, they’re just gonna power on right? I think the official time on the pop version was five minutes and 55 seconds It takes you it takes you an hour to listen to it ten times You’re gonna have to listen to Bohemian Rhapsody figuratively, you know probably 120 done? Well, the first time that I ever met you, Clay, was at that first conference in Tulsa, and that was an incredible conference, and I was so impressed with just the whole thing, just the professionalism, you as a person, your business, your work ethic, and really just who you are, and I was very impressed with all of that, and I thought, gosh, you know, this might be someone that I would really consider working with, like maybe he could really help me. And that’s really what got me interested because I was so impressed with just the professionalism of all of it. And I learned a lot. I come about once a year to a business conference and I’d like to come more, but every year I try to come with my marketing girl with me and we always learn something. We always learn something. And I think next year I’m gonna bring my husband because he really needs to come too. Okay, Thrive Nation, on today’s show, I wanted to share with you a story about a good person who’s growing a good business by treating their customers the way they wanna be treated. She’s a long-time client. We’re honored to serve her and help her grow her business. And I want you to hear a great success story. So that being said, Dr. Stephanie, welcome onto the Thrive Time Show. How are you? Hi, I’m doing great. Thank you so much, Clay. Well, first off, I’m gonna pull up your website. So tell all the listeners, what’s the name of your website so we can verify that you are in fact a real orthodontist? Okay, my website is smileshollywood.com. Okay, smileshollywood.com. smileshollywood.com, yes. I’m gonna pull this up real quick here. And as I pull this up, I’m gonna ask you a little bit about your background, because you’re doing really well. You’re based in McKinney, Texas. When did you have that vision to become an orthodontist? Like, what age were you where you thought, you know what, I want to become an orthodontist? Well, that had to have been when I was visiting my own orthodontist, Dr. Jim Bolley, who’s retired now, but was an awesome, great orthodontist and one of the greats, really. But what’s funny is, is that I actually wanted to be a medical doctor first. And I used to go into his office and he’d say, Stephanie, you don’t wanna be a medical doctor. You wanna be an orthodontist. And I said, no, I don’t Dr. Foley. Why are you saying that? And he started telling me all of the great things about dentistry and why it’s so great because you don’t have to deal with people dying on you. You don’t have to deal with sick people. You get to make people look amazing and beautiful by straightening their teeth and you leave with happy patients. And you know, he talked me into it and I thought, that sounds like a great job. So that’s really how I became an orthodontist. And you’re in McKinney, Texas, right? So how long have you been an orthodontist in McKinney, Texas? So I’ve been an orthodontist for 26 years, practicing in the beginning. And when you went to medical school, what percentage of the time in medical school or dentistry school, dental school, did they spend teaching you how to market and or grow your own practice? Absolutely zero. Zero? Zero marketing skills. Okay, okay. And so one of the great things that I love about working with you is, you know, we get to help you grow your business, but, you know, you get to be more of who you are. I mean, you get to help more patients and help more people create great smiles. And then we get to do some of the nitty-gritty stuff that, you know, maybe isn’t your highest and best use. And so I want to focus on some of the things we’ve been able to accomplish together over these few years here. First off, from a branding perspective, I really do feel like your website is first class. And from when I talked to Andrew, you’re the coach who works with you, I’m always hearing that more and more patients are coming in from Google. Could you talk about that? How much of an impact does it have having maybe a rebranded or updated website and Google leads coming in? It has had a huge difference, absolutely huge difference in our patient load coming in. And you know, before I really wasn’t tracking really well. And that’s one of the things I learned from Thrive Time Business was how to track patients coming in, how to really, how to see where they’re coming from. And at the time, I really didn’t know much about Google. And, you know, being an orthodontist for 26 years, I didn’t really know a lot of, I kind of went through a time where I went through shock. It was really what I call culture shock because the old ways of marketing were not working anymore. And because I really didn’t know about online marketing, I really didn’t, I was still doing, you know, phone book ads and magazine ads and all of these things. And so Thrive Time has really helped. I started out with 97 reviews. Now we have almost 600 reviews. And you know it takes a long time to get those reviews and you have to really work diligently. And you know Andrew was amazing. My coach, he’s fantastic, really, really had to prod me sometimes because you know sometimes I was like an old mule and just stuck my feet in and said, no, I don’t want to do that. And he said, trust me, it works. And I just kept going and he kept pushing. And I’ll tell you what, it’s really working. We’re getting a lot of patients from Google, and it’s fantastic. Now, as far as gathering patients from the Google search results, there’s a couple of things that have to happen. I mean, one, you’ve got to have the most content. There’s four variables. One, you have to have the most original HTML content or text. Second, you have to have the most objective reviews from real customers. Third, your website has to be in constant mobile compliance where we’re updating the website to meet the current updated guidelines of the ever-evolving Internet. And then we’ve got to make sure your website is canonically compliant, where it basically follows all Google’s rules. How much has that helped your peace of mind, knowing that you have a team that’s helping you update your website every month and that you don’t have to do that? It is a huge relief, an absolute huge relief, because I know that these things are being done. The SEO is being done properly. The backwriting under the website is being done properly. And increasing and we’re relevant every single day. We’re relevant because I know these things are happening. And before, I actually was trying to do some of these things on my own. And, you know, I’m not the best writer. And then I realized, why am I doing this myself? Because honestly, I don’t have the time. And so it’s really a great relief to know that these things are being done and that they’re working. And I saw when I first started with Thrive Time, I was probably 11 or 12. I was working with an SEO company at the time, and I was probably coming up 11 or 12, which is really the second page when somebody brings you up on the computer. But now I’m at two, I’m at three, I’m at four, depending on the keywords. So I, it’s gonna be more happy. And you know, again, if we do a search for orthodontist in McKinney, Texas, we can find you right there in the top three. Also, after you move past the three pack or the top three there, we can also find your site in the search results. And again, it’s not a result of luck. It’s not a result of some sort of woo-woo plan. It’s specific, actionable processes. The next thing I want to talk about is just overall lead tracking and Dream 100 marketing. I think a lot of times people, not you, but other people, entrepreneurs, none of our listeners, we might market based on feel. So if we feel like we’re not getting enough leads, we might feel the need to go market. And if we feel like we’re overwhelmed with leads, we might feel the need to not market. But one of the things that we try to teach to our wonderful clients like yourself is the importance of implementing a consistent and implementable plan, a consistent and practical plan. Could you talk about the importance of tracking your leads and then also just consistently doing those marketing systems like the Dream 100 that do this route? So the Dream 100 has really been a great addition. We were doing something similar to that, but really not with the concerted effort and doing it on a regular basis. We were kind of doing it a little more haphazardly and I really have noticed a difference because when you are visiting dentist’s office and you’re developing a relationship with them and they are seeing you on a regular basis every week or every two weeks, the staff starts to remember you and so you never know, a patient may come in tomorrow and you just dropped by their office with a goodie today, you know, and then they are going to think of you whenever it’s time to refer for an orthodontist. And that’s really made a big, big change in our practice too. And we track every single one of those, so we know how many Dr. X sent over and we know how many Dr. Y sent over. So we know our top referrers and we know the ones that we need to kind of get to know better and help them send to us too. There’s somebody watching this right now who’s a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer, and they’re going, I don’t know if the Dream 100 works. What do you say to that person who’s sitting down with you right now and they go, yeah, I just don’t know if that works. I say it definitely works. And you definitely do have to get out and meet the dentist yourself at least one time. Even if you just – some of the dentists I couldn’t actually just go meet, you know, to have lunch. They didn’t have lunches. So I just actually went by the office myself. I took a little goodie with me, you know, a muffin or something, and I’d go by maybe right before lunch and just introduce myself. And then when my gal would come by every week or every other week to deliver things to their office, they at least knew who I was, I had introduced myself. And we found that we started getting patients that way. So it definitely helps. Now, next thing I wanna talk about is this hiring. And I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like this. I’m sure you have, it’s probably just me. But whenever you have a garden that you plant, I’ll pull up a picture of a garden so we can all picture it in our minds. Whenever you plant a garden, there’s probably some initial excitement. You go, you know what? I’m going to plant these tomatoes. I’m going to do it. I’m going to get after it. This is my year. I’m going to get the garden going. I’m excited. I’m going organic. Let’s go. Well, what happens is over time, people stop pulling the weeds. They stop tending to the garden. And over time, the garden becomes like an overgrown monster garden. The garden starts to become something that looks like a mistake, something that looks like an uh-oh, something where your neighbors say, are you going to mow that thing? And it gets bad. And the same thing is true with employees. If you have a team of people that work for you on your payroll and you’re a business owner, it turns out that the average American today, for whatever reason, and I’m going to pull some stats here so people don’t think I’m crazy. The U.S. Chamber reports that 75% of employees steal from the workplace. What? That’s the U.S. Chamber reporting that 75% of employees steal from the workplace. You might say, really? Yeah. And 85% of employees, 85% of employees lie on resumes, meaning that they just make up some statistic on their, they throw it on their resumes. 85% of employees are, again, are lying on their resumes. I’m pulling this up here folks. But there are there’s a certain group of employees that they just lie on the resumes. Called 85% of job applicants lie on the resumes and 75% of employees steal from the workplace. So in your business you have a great staff and you want to keep it that way. So you can’t hire the thieves. You can’t hire people that lie on their resumes. So that 85% of the population that lies on the resumes, they can’t work for you. And that 75% of the population that steals from the workplace, they can’t work for you either because you want to wow your customers. Can you talk about embracing the processes that we teach of the ongoing hiring processes and just always recruiting new people? Absolutely. So, we have taken on really the task of making sure that we have every single day and at any one time there is going to be an ad out there for any position in our office. And, you know, occasionally we’ll have somebody come in and we’ll have them, you know, just do a little affidavit or something. And what’s really interesting is that even my employees, even when I’m not needing someone, my employees will be like, why are we having somebody come in, do a working interview? You know, and everybody gets really nervous. But it actually also helps them get on their best behavior again. But it’s like if you always have someone waiting in the wings, then should you have someone that drops off? Maybe their husband gets transferred and they’re a wonderful employee, but it’s just now they have to move and now you’ve got someone that you can hire. Or if you have someone that’s like what happened in my office where it was an inventory day and doctors weren’t there and she decided to go work out and hang out with her boyfriend for five hours and then forgot to clock out. So that’s called stealing. Yeah. And I, you know, and recently, and this is just real examples I’m sharing with people. I’ve had some of my really, really nice employees, two of them decided to have a baby and start a family. And so I’m not going to hold an employee hostage. I’m not mad that they decided to move on. But you get to a place where if you’re not careful, folks, you’re going to find yourself in a kind of a defensive posture where you’re not going to be able to cover the appointments, the obligations, the customers that are reaching out to you. So if you’re out there today, hiring has got to be a process and not an event. So again, just recapping, the branding, the marketing, the search engine optimization, the hiring, the tracking. I want to talk about retargeting ads. Retargeting ads, whenever somebody goes to your website, we’ve got to have ads that follow people around the internet so that way people constantly see Smiles Hollywood, Smiles Hollywood, Smiles Hollywood, and that creates top-of-mind awareness. Can you talk about how important it is for you to know that you have a team of people thinking about those kind of things so again you don’t have to? Absolutely, and I think just being a Thrivetime customer really makes you feel like you’re taken care of in so many different areas because I didn’t even know what those ads were when I first became a client. I didn’t even know, I remember thinking, I wonder how you get to have an ad when you’re going to your bank account and then all of a sudden this thing pops up for some brand of sunglasses that you were just looking at. I thought, how do you get those ads? How do you even find out about them? And so these are the ads that you guys fixed us up with and they’re fantastic. And I do know that they do bring in patients. Now, coaching is an ongoing process. Every week, Andrew meets with you. Every week, and this might sound shocking for folks out there, but every single morning, our coaches have to meet with me at 6 in the morning. And I ask them every morning, I say, how’s your client doing? And I go over all 160 clients. It’s a real thing. I go over 40 clients every single day. I go over a checklist of all 40 clients every day. And we do that every single morning. So every week we review the files of all 160 clients to make sure you guys are thriving, you’re growing, you’re not backsliding, everyone’s doing well. Could you talk about the importance of having somebody who A, helps you track, but also kind of pushes you to be your best? Well, that has been a lifesaver because honestly, well, I kind of learned it on myself because Andrew was good about pushing me. And he would say, okay, well, did you meet with your staff about this or that? And I said, oh, yeah, I didn’t quite do that. And so he was really good about reminding me that I needed to meet with my staff once a week or once a day, whatever it was, depending on the item. But I found, like, for instance, with my front desk girl, she was fantastic, but she was supposed to be following up on leads. She was supposed to have a lead list. And so every week I would call her and say, hey, how’s that lead list? And I would actually have Andrew on the phone with me. And we would talk and she kind of would say, yeah, yeah, they’re good. And then finally I think she got it. She realized I need a list. And so I think she realized Dr. Price is going to ask me every week and I better get organized here.” And so she actually came up with her own lead list in her own little system, which was fantastic, by the way, and it’s helped us tremendously at the front desk. And any time we go over the lead list, because I have several, I have about three employees that have lead lists, different kinds of lead lists, and she is fantastic. I never have to worry about her lead list. The other two I have to check theirs, but, and that’s the thing is I think you start to really hold your employees accountable. And Andrew helps hold me accountable and make sure that I’m doing everything I’m supposed to be doing because let’s face it, life gets busy. You know, and I mean, I’m a mom and I’m a wife and I have all kinds of other things going on too. And so I want to have a thriving business, but you have to, you have to put the work into your business. And it’s nice to have someone there prodding me along when I get lazy. Now you’re one of these wonderful folks where most of our clients, they actually come to the workshops, they also do coaching, and so you’re somebody who’s been to the conferences, you do the weekly coaching, you’ve seen the whole experience. I guess some people describe our coaching system as life-changing, where they focus on the numbers. How would you describe how the one-on-one coaching in conjunction with the conference has impacted maybe you and or your business? Well, the first time that I ever met you, Clay, was at that first conference in Tulsa, and that was an incredible conference. And I was so impressed with just the whole thing, just the professionalism, you as a person, your business, your work ethic, and really just who you are. And I was very impressed with all of that. And I thought, gosh, you know, this might be someone that I would really consider working with. Like maybe he could really help me. And that’s really what got me interested because I was so impressed with just the professionalism of all of it. And I learned a lot. I come about once a year to a business conference. And I’d like to come more, but every year I try to come with my marketing girl with me. And we always learn something. We always learn something. And I think next year I’m going to bring my husband because he really needs to come too. He’s been going along with this with me and he’s thinking, wow, this is really working for you. Maybe I need to come. So we’ve loved it. So if somebody is watching right now, they’re on the website, they go to Thrivetimeshow.com, they’re thinking about scheduling a free consultation or they’re thinking about coming to a workshop. What do you say to somebody out there that’s on the fence, thinking about coming to a conference and or scheduling a free 13 point assessment? Well, I say absolutely do it, absolutely do it. And I will say that it’s a process. It doesn’t happen overnight, but if you stay the course, you’re gonna see results because I’m absolutely convinced. Dr. Christ, thank you for allowing us to take up some of your valuable time today. I really do appreciate you and I can’t wait to see you in person here soon. All right, thanks so much, Clay. Take care. Bye-bye. JT, do you know what time it is? 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Roseland, baby. Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma during the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th, 2024. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma in the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business growth workshop. Yes, folks, put it in your calendar this December, the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma in the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business growth workshop. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old. And a lot of people have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. And off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now, the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Well, they’re going to have to come and find out, because I don’t know. Well, I’m just saying, TipTV 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 and 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 DPR 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? What do I do? How does it work? You just go to thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to thrivetimeshow.com. Again, you just go to thrivetimeshow.com. You click on the business conferences button, and you click on the request tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. Did you start out with a million dollars in the bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that. Did not get an inheritance from parents or anything like that. I had to work for it and I’m 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 and Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now, for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office and so it’s going to be packed. Who? You! You’re going to come. 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 give 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 millionaires guide to becoming sustainably rich you can leave with a workbook really with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company it’s practical it’s actionable and it’s T-Boat time right here in Tulsa, Russia get those tickets today at Thrivetimeshow.com again that’s Thrivetimeshow.com dot 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 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 L.A., 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 mean, 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’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person, two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person, two-day interactive business workshop, all you got to do is go to thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets and if you can’t afford $250 we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the academy at Kings Point in New York, octa non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvard Kiyosaki, the Rich Dad Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, but they’re completely different worlds. And I have a special guest today. Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts as a Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric, Eric Trump. But we’re also talking about money, bricks and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man. And there’s so many ways we could take this thing. But I thought since you and Eric are close, Trump. What were you saying about what Donald, who’s my age, and I can say or cannot say? 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 Thorne, who was my boss at the time. I was 19 years old working at Faith Highway. I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV. He said, �Have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad?� I said, �No.� My father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. 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 wanted 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. Not only that, Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. More than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there, 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 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, King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Whoa.