ClayClark | Business Conference | Small Business Accounting & Finances + Why You Must Know Your Numbers + How to Determine Your Break-Even Point + Join Tebow At Clay Clark’s Dec 5-6 Business 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, 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 introduce the show. But this show does. In a world filled with endless opportunities, why would two men who have built 13 multi-million dollar businesses 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. She’s bringing some wisdom and the goodness 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 G 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 here We started from the bottom, now we’re here We started from the bottom, now we’re here We started from the bottom, now we’re here Get ready to enter the Thrive Time Show. Three, two, one, boom! Oh, yes, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the conversation. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former U.S. SBA Entrepreneur of the Year. And, Chuck, Eric, Chuck, business coach, what are we talking about today, my man? Oh, my man, we are going to go over how to determine your weekly break-even and goal achievement numbers. Okay, let’s get into it. Okay, let’s do it. So, first off, when you’re playing a game, a sport, let’s say you’re playing basketball, your kid’s playing basketball, you would want to know what your team’s score is. If you’re on the sideline cheering for a third grade boys’ basketball game, you would want to know how many points your team has scored and then you’d want to know how many points that the other team has scored so therefore you could tell who’s winning or not. This is one thing about cheerleading that’s hard for me because my daughters will perform and I don’t really know whether they did good or bad or whether they’re winning or losing and then magically like three hours later out emerges a second place trophy. Out of something thin air. Or a third or a first. I don’t know what’s happening. But for baseball, basketball, football, these kinds of sports, you can know whether you’re ahead or behind. There’s a scoreboard. There’s a scoreboard. Exactly. And so for your business, you have to have a scoreboard. And some of the key numbers you have to have is you have to know how many deals you need, how many customers you need, how many clothes deals, how many paying customers, how many whatever you need to sell just to break even. It’s a big deal. Now, Chuck, you see a lot of business owners, I know not anybody listening right now, but other people that have no clue how many deals they need to break even. It’s very, very typical to meet with somebody and they’re just kind of like, well, I know we didn’t lose money last month, which is where a lot of people find themselves, right? You’re busy with the day-to-day and you don’t have the time or block out the time to go back and review these numbers. And then you’re just kind of drifting along, hoping that you’re making enough money to keep the doors open at the end of the month. And our whole goal here is to make sure that everybody leaves feeling whole and not full of holes. I never want to talk down or feel like I’m talking down to anybody or patronizing anybody. The whole goal is to coach you up. The word charisma actually comes from the Greek word charisma with a K, charisma, which means the gift of grace. So my entire goal is to coach you up and not talk down to you, but I want to just make sure we’re getting this. Jeff, what percentage of the customers that you’ve worked with as a business coach over the years, or you’ve seen as a business coach, what percentage of those clients actually know their break-even number on a weekly basis when you first work with them? What percentage actually know, I would say… By default, they know without your help. Maybe two out of ten, so maybe 20%. You might have a really great batch of clients you’ve worked with, because I’ve never seen one. Even less? I’ve never seen it. What will happen is the client, it’s just like a sports team where they’re out there playing the game, they’re working really hard, they’re running up and down the court, going as fast as possible to try to score, but they get down to the final minute of the game and they look at their coach and they say, are we ahead? What’s happening? And the coach goes, no, we’re down by 20! The coach goes, I don’t know! It’s just a weird deal. All of a sudden at the end of the month, their coach, at the end of the game, the coach pulls them aside and says, guys, we lost by like 28 points. And I just want you guys to know, that was terrible. And usually the coach is the accountant. You see, the accountant normally says, you guys lost by like 807 points, and so people don’t even know there was a score. So what we need to do, Stephen Covey, the bestselling author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, he says you want to begin with the end in mind. Or Jack Welch, the number one CEO of all time, who grew GE by 4,000% during his tenure. He says, you’ve got to eat while you dream. You’ve got to deliver on the short range commitments while you develop a long range strategy, envision and implement it. The success of doing both, walking and chewing gum, if you will. Getting it done in the short range and delivering a long range plan and executing on that. All right, so here are the specific action steps that you and I and every business owner needs to take to get to a place of clarity in your mind where you know your weekly break-even point and your weekly goal achievement point. It has to be weekly. You have to do this weekly. This cannot be a monthly. This cannot be a quarterly. It has to be weekly. So here we go. You want to write down on a whiteboard in your office The number of deals you need to break even so you’re saying well, I don’t know that’s why I’m listening to this Well, then right now I want you to get a big whiteboard now So if we want to make our own whiteboard, can you explain how to do that that shower board move? Yeah, you can go to Home Depot and back in the you know, preformed shower shower door area of Lowe’s or Home Depot They have these four by eight sheets of dry erase board. It’s not dry erase board, but it works just as good, if not better, and they’re about $9. You’d pay typically a few hundred dollars for a whiteboard that size. So, awesome business hack. You can go in there, put a little wood, put a little decor around it, and make it look nice. Let’s do this. On the show notes, let’s put a link to the YouTube video that shows people how to make a whiteboard. And so, after the show, let’s put, during the break, let’s put that on there, how to make your own whiteboard. So right now, if you get the whiteboard, I’m not exaggerating, you need to put the number you need to break even on a whiteboard. You need to do that. OK. And if you don’t know, just write a big question mark and put it where somewhere everybody can see it. Chup, why would you want to put the number somewhere where everybody can see it? Well, this is a super important number. I mean, your cash flow is your blood of your business. And so everybody needs to know it needs to be top of mind, it needs to be out where it’s not some kind of weird strategic mystery that nobody knows what you’re talking about. Hey guys, gals, we’ve got to get this number before we’re even making money this month to keep the doors open. Okay, now the second step, again, I know you don’t know the number yet, but work with me. The second step is you want to write down on your daily to-do list, you know the one that you carry around with you all the time? Oh yeah. The number of deals that you need to break even. All right, you need to do this. It needs to be on the whiteboard in your office and on your to-do list. Then you want to write down on the whiteboard the number of deals you need or customers you need to achieve your financial goals. So don’t overcomplicate this. We need to put on the whiteboard the number of customers we need to break even and the number of customers that we need to achieve our goals, both on the whiteboard and both on the to-do list. And this is why that Stephen Covey quote from a minute ago is so important. Begin with the end in mind. If you don’t know what these goals are, you don’t know what you’re working towards, right? Right. So here’s what I want you to do. Now the next action item is I want you to create a list, okay? Create a list of all, again, create a list of all of the expenses related to delivering your product or service. Some people would call this the cost of goods. I’m not going to worry about the semantics. I’m saying make a list of all the expenses related to delivering your product or service. So let’s say you’re a plumber. What does it cost you for, we’ll put this on the show notes, but what does it cost you for materials, right? The cost of materials. What does it cost in terms of the actual goods needed? What does it cost in terms of labor, right? What’s the cost of the labor? What about the cost of driving? What about the cost of insurance? What about the cost of credit card fees? All of the costs related to getting from point A to point B, from delivering the product or service, what are all those costs? Think about those, and this should take you. I have never seen this take less than about a good half hour to an hour to do this. Because, Chuck, there are so many expenses that people probably have not thought of. Well, and you’ve got to make sure that this list is complete, right? You can’t just go around doing business whenever there’s a whole chunk of these variable or cost of goods sold that you’re not counting into it. I’ve worked with a client a few, I want to say probably two months ago, and they were just grinding along. They were doing good, but we kind of went through all of these numbers, and we got to the end, and the owner was like, well, I knew I was making money, but they weren’t putting in some of those costs, some of those extra costs on those variable prices. And he was like, oh my gosh, we’ve got to raise our prices. And so just seeing the numbers finally after 15 years, OK, let’s raise our prices and now things are going a lot better. So let me just keep listing them off. Cost of credit cards, the cost of acquiring new customers, like advertising, the cost of taxes. A lot of people don’t think about that. They think about, oh, I make $100,000 a year. No you don’t. I talked to one gentleman last week who said, I owe $45,000 in taxes. I said, well that’s what happens when you make $100,000. You want to make sure you understand that the government takes half of that stuff. The cost of taxes, the cost of administration, these are all things that cost. Because if you’re a plumber and you have somebody who answers the phone for your plumbing business and then you deploy a plumber who goes on the job but someone else answers the phone, somebody’s being paid to answer that phone. So what is the cost of that person as it relates to delivering the service? You have to think about all that. What are all of the costs? You’ve got to think about that. Now the next thing you have to do is you want to create a list of all of the fixed expenses. Now Chuck, can you kind of hit on some common fixed expenses? The expenses that are mostly each month the same. Yeah, so some of those are going to be like maybe salaried employees, right? They’re getting paid no matter what. If we’re building products or delivering on a product or service, they’re getting paid. Your rent, that would be another one, right? It doesn’t matter necessarily how much business you do, but the building and the office or whatever you’re in is going to stay the same. So those will be two of the main ones that I see. You know, your electric bill, just basically these fixed costs are all of the costs that you’re still going to have, you’re still going to owe this money, even if you don’t do $1 in business. These are costs that are going to happen every month regardless. This could be, I’m just listing off some of these to get you guys going, because I know sometimes it’s hard to look at a blank sheet of paper and not know where to start. Printing costs, leasing costs, electric bill, phone bill. Phone bill, that’s one. Water bill. The water bill at the Riverwalk, I always love getting that bill because sometimes the ladies restroom gets stuck on there at a conference. Have you heard about this? Yeah, I’ve fixed it. Did you? I have before, yeah. Did Vanessa tell you how rowdy the bill got one time? No. Our building is like $27,000 a month to be there, and I think the bill one month got to like $1,800 just for the water because that thing got left on. See? See what can happen? You’ve got to be reviewing this stuff. Running costs, leasing costs, the electrical bill, the water bill, the phone bill, the internet bill. Think about this, the insurances you’ve got. All the insurances. Yeah, it stays. You have the insurances. There’s a lot of that. A workman’s comp, I know it’s an insurance, but there’s so many insurances. There’s so many kinds of fixed costs. After you do all that stuff, what you do now, you know the cost related to all of your, the cost of delivering the goods, the cost related to actually delivering the product or service. These are costs you only experience if you deliver a product or service. Now that you know that, and now you know your fixed expenses, your coach will work with you to create this thing called a pro forma. And a pro forma is nothing more than a future projection of financial performance based upon previously known factual data. Right. So it’s where you, based upon knowing this information, then we can make a projection of future financial performance called a proforma. It’s an educated projection, right? You’re not just kind of pulling numbers out of thin air. You just have to do this. Now, here’s what we’ve got to do. This is where it gets a little weird. You’re going to have to make sure that after you know all these expenses, we’re going to put here on the show notes that you need to do this, but I just want to make sure you’re getting this. You’re going to create a proforma. Now I know that a proforma is a vague idea, but the whole point of a proforma is you want to ultimately know, you want to know from this thing, and Shep will put this on the show notes here, you want to know the profit per customer. And then just put that in parentheses. We want to operate at least a 30% profit margin if possible. 20 to 30% profit margin. You have to know the profit per customer. Okay, you have to know that and then you would say So let’s just make it very simple Let’s say that you’re open to all in your overhead You have to bring at least ten thousand dollars a month to break even and your average deal is five hundred bucks Then you’d want to say, okay Well gosh We’re gonna have to do at least twenty deals a month to break even that and you have to know that Then you have to make sure that you know the number of the number of deals you need per week to break even. So you’ve got to break it down into the number of deals you need per week. I’m telling you, this changes everything in a business once everyone on your team knows this. Can I tell you something too? What I’ve found with working with so many clients through this process is a lot of times we don’t want to be like, oh, I don’t know if I want to look at this. I’ve never really sat down. But almost every single time whenever we get through this and it’s kind of more of a clear picture. Literally just this week, last week, I was working with a guy and he was like, oh, you just wasted my whole weekend. I’m going to be looking at these numbers all weekend and because he’s just excited about it. He knows what’s going on now. You have to know that. And the final thing is you want to know the number of deals you need per week to achieve your financial goals. And I’ll just give you an example. With Epic Photography, before I sold the business, I knew that we needed to hit $30,000 a week in sales to achieve my financial goals for that business And let me tell you what every Thursday every Friday, and we were at like 25,000 26,000 It’s exciting because you achieved your goal now that is how you do it and we come back from the break We’re gonna teach you how to design your ideal schedule for the ideal life. Stay tuned. Well folks, continuing on the theme of how to help your business become more profitable, again we’ve got to focus on offense and defense if we’re growing a successful business. We’ve got to focus on offense and defense. What’s offense? That’s marketing, that’s sales, that’s branding, that’s search engine optimization. A lot of times marketing and branding and sales, that can be viewed as exciting information. A lot of times people say, wow, that’s exciting. I want to know how to do marketing, branding, sales, my vision. Woo, yes. But then when you talk about accounting, most people start to say, ah, that sounds a lot like defense, sounds like numbers, sounds like math, sounds kind of depressing. I don’t want to talk about it. And that’s why the average person listening to today’s show is probably overpaying for credit card fees. You’re probably spending more money than you should be spending on credit card fees. And so today’s guest, Tyler Carson, is the guy who I teamed up with many, many years ago, who helped my businesses and my clients to save thousands of dollars per year by utilizing his credit card processing services. And with that being said, Tyler Carson, welcome to the Thrived Time Show. How are you, sir? I’m doing great, Clay. Thanks for having me. So, Tyler, if people want to check out your business, it’s called Integrated Payment Services. Tell us what makes your company different. What do you guys focus on there, Integrated Payment Services? I mean, we focus on the needs of the customer. You know, a lot of people try to fit all of their customers into their box. You know, we have a different approach where we come in as a consultant and really look to see how you’re doing things, see if we can maybe add some processes to help your business run smoother, and then you know, we’ll take a look at your, take a look at what you’re doing on the credit card side and hopefully save you thousands of dollars a year. And I think most people love the idea of saving thousands of dollars per year, but maybe they think well if I reach out to Tyler and his team, I’m probably going to get stuck on a call and that call’s probably never gonna end, and it’s probably gonna take forever, and I’m gonna probably hate my life, and they’re probably gonna upsell me, and it’s probably gonna be a not positive experience. Tell people what it’s like if they do choose to reach out to you there, sir. Yeah, for sure. So it’s a five to 10 minute conversation where we wanna learn more about their business, what they do, and then from there, we get them to send us just a little bit of information on how they’re currently processing their payments. From there, we provide a detailed analysis for where they can see the actual savings that they would have with us. That whole process is a five to 10-minute conversation and then maybe one or two emails and then they have everything that they need to make the decision. So let’s direct people for a second. If anybody out there, if you’re watching today’s show, you go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. That’s where we go, Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. People can pull out the form, they can request a free quote, and away they go. You were telling me off air you had some exciting news you wanted to share with our listeners today. Tell us, what kind of great news do you have there, sir? I do. We’ve actually talked to a few of your listeners that are in maybe the service space. So maybe it’s appliance repair, HVAC, maybe it’s roofing or could be housekeeping, could be landscaping, could be pest control, utilities. And a lot of times those businesses, they get stuck with a particular software or service to where it only allows one processor. So it might be a company like Service Titan or a company like Housecall Pro. And those businesses are great because they run their business, but they’re extremely expensive on the credit card processing side. So we now have a solution for those types of businesses where we can provide those same services that they’re getting from a Service Titan or a Housecall Pro, but they can do do the credit card processing through us at a much lower discounted rate. And so let’s talk about that for a second. I mean, with clients you’re working with, how much money are you able to save your clients? What kind of a review? Do you have a recent case study or a recent example of a business that you’ve been able to sit down with and save them? Because I tell people, on average, the clients that we’ve referred to you tell me they’re saving an average of at least $3,000 a year and usually quite higher than that. But again, the listeners to our show who come to our business conferences routinely tell me that after talking to you, they can save over $3,000 a year on average. Do you have a recent success story there, sir? Sure, I’ve got a couple. So recently, we met with a vision center in Oklahoma. And then, you know, they were kind of doing things a certain way. We went in, we looked at it, had to make a few changes for them operationally, but total savings for them was $1,600 a month, which obviously they were fine to make a few changes operationally to save $1,600 a month. And then got a recent one here with a pest control company where we save them $500 a month. That was this week. And what I hear a lot is people haven’t compared rates at all in years before talking to you. I keep hearing people tell me that, you know, previous to talking to you, they haven’t compared rates in years or often a decade. Do you hear the same thing? I mean, what do you hear when people talk to you about comparing rates? I mean, is this something that people haven’t done in a while typically? Yeah, either they haven’t done it in a while or they did it, you know, they did it once and then, you know, they moved and the person that they signed with didn’t provide them what they said they were going to provide, which is unfortunate that people in our industry do that. You’re never going to get that with IPS. We don’t have any contracts. Everything is month to month, but we guarantee you whatever we provide to you in the analysis, that’s where you will be with us the entire time that you process with us for however many years that you’re in business. And your services are month to month is my understanding. You’re not locking people into a long contract, but if you’re sitting down with somebody today and they’re going, well, what ultimately makes integrated payment services different from other credit card processing companies? Can you tell us what separates you guys from your competition and tell us about the month to month offer you guys have? Sure. So yeah, that’s one of the things that makes us different is we’re month to month, we don’t have any contracts. We’re extremely aggressive on our rates, which a lot of companies are, but we are extremely aggressive and we always answer our phone. So we’ve got people here in the office, you know, I happen to call 1-800 number and wait on hold or, you know, talk to somebody overseas, it’s here. We’re based in Oklahoma, we’re central time zone, but, you know, wherever you’re at in the United States, you’re going to call our office, you’re going to speak to, you know, one of the reps here in our office that’s going to be able to get you taken care of, whatever the issue might be, get it resolved that same day. Final question I have for you is a lot of people, like yourself, they hop on a great show like the Thrive Time show, and then they think to themselves, man, I wish Clay would have asked me this, or I wish the host would have asked me this, or I wish I could have talked about this. Is there anything else that you want to share in these final 60 seconds that you believe everybody out there needs to know about your business and your brand, Integrated Payment Services? Yeah, for sure. So, I mean, one of the ones that we get a lot is just, you know, how are you able to price me lower? But two, the other one is, you know, how do I know that you’re not just going to raise my rates as soon as I sign that paperwork? For the first one, you know, that’s what we do. The second one, you just got to, I know it sounds, you know, it’s silly, but you got to trust us. And we’ve got thousands of customers that do business with us now that have for decades that are set exactly the same way as they were from the moment they started doing business with us. I think everyone should look at their credit card processing fees as it’s typically the lifeblood of your business. We’re moving more and more and more towards people not having cash or people not being able to write checks. And so, you know, credit card is probably for the majority of your listeners and the majority of people doing business. That’s what, you know, that’s what drives our business. We have next day funding. We have same day funding, which a lot of people don’t have. So we, you know, we’re here to help them succeed. I encourage everybody to check it out. It’s Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. That’s thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. His name is Tyler Carson. Tyler, thank you so much for your time, sir. And we’ll talk to you soon. Sounds great. See you guys. Well, I, 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’m, I think next year I’m going to 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 want to be treated. She’s a longtime 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 on to 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 wanna become an orthodontist? Well, that had to have been when I was visiting my own orthodontist, Dr. Jim Bolli, who’s retired now, but was an awesome, great orthodontist and one of the greats, really. But what’s funny 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 want to be a medical doctor. You want to be an orthodontist. And I said, no, I don’t, Dr. Bolli. 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 at McKinney. 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. 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. From when I talk to Andrew, 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 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, uh, 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 snuck 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, you know, 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 am 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 goody today, 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, you know, 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 want to talk about is 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, 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 a uh-oh, something where your neighbor’s there, you’re gonna 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. And 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. And 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 occasionally we’ll have somebody come in and we’ll have them 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? And everybody gets really nervous, but it actually also helps them get on their best behavior again. So, 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, you know, it was a 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, you know? 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 taking 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, you know, for some brand of sunglasses that you were just looking at, I thought, how do you get those ads? You know, how do you even find out about them? And so these are the ads that you guys fix this 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. I know this might sound shocking for folks out there, but every single morning, our coaches have to meet with me at six 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 she and we would talk and she 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. Christ 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 anytime 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. 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 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 or 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. And 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’s watching right now, they’re on the website, they go to thrive timeshow.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 going to 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? Um, 410. It’s T-Bo 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 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, Tim Tebow’s going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russela. 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. Over the years, we’ve had the opportunity to feature Michael Levine, the PR consultant of choice for Nike, for Prince, for Michael Jackson. We’ve had 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 have 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. What? Yes! We’ve designed these events to be affordable for you and we want to see you live and in person at the 2-Day Interactive December 5th and 6th 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’ve been able to build multi-million dollar companies. Watch those testimonials today at Thrivetimeshow.com simply by clicking on the testimonials button right there at Thrivetimeshow.com You’re going to see thousands of people just like you who have been able to go from just surviving to thriving. Each and every day we’re going to add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup but I encourage everybody out there today get those tickets today. Go to Thrivetimeshow.com 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. Thrive is cool. 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, Russia, Oklahoma. I suppose it’s Tulsa, Russia. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russia, 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 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 gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things and those tickets are $500 It’s a two-day Interactive business workshop over 20 hours of business training We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book the millionaires 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, Russia. Get those tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s thrivetimeshow.com. Hello, I’m Michael Levine, and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California, where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies and I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now why would a man living in Hollywood California in the beautiful sunny weather of LA come 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 systems 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 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 it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money. So if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person two-day interactive business workshop, all you got to do is go to ThriftTimeShow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the Academy in Kings Point, New York, acta 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 closed, but they’re completely different worlds. And we 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, Eric Trump, but we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man and there’s so many ways we could take this thing. But I thought since you and Eric are close, Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who’s my age, and I can say or cannot say. Well, I have to, 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 I got the name of 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 and I just want to take a moment to tell you thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success and I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you thank you sir for changing my life. Well not only that Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. 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. Anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much, and thanks for reading my books. Yeah. That’s the greatest thrill for me today. Not a thrill, but recognition is when people, young men especially, come up and say, I read your book, changed my life, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy, at King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Whoa, man.