Business Coach | How Clay Clark Started & Grew DJConnection.com Into One of America’s Largest Wedding Entertainment Companies + Working At Target, Applebee’s & DirecTV At the Same Time + How to Start a Business

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 US Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body, Dr. Robert Zunder. Two men. Eight kids, co-created by two different women. Thirteen multi-million dollar businesses. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here Started from the bottom, now we’re here We started from the bottom, now we’re here

Started from the bottom, and now we’re at the top Teaching you the systems to get what we got Colton Dixon’s on the hooks, I break down the books The seeds bring in some wisdom and the good roots 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, let me show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now After The Jump. One definite chief aim. No office space. No budget. Chapter 3, life after the jump.

One definite chief aim, no office space, no budget, no problem. Jason, think about the clients that you’re working with and the clients that you’ve coached. How often do you find yourself talking to somebody who is running out of money, running out of time, running out of some resource. How often do you find that to be the case? Very often.

This particular chapter is meant to, one, tell you the DJ Connection story, share with you the story, but also meant to help you because as my wife and I decided to start the DJ business full-time, I shared with you in the previous wife and I decided to start the DJ business full time, I shared with you in the previous chapter, I had to book, I made a commitment to myself, I’m not going to go full time starting DJ Connection until I could book four weddings a week for four consecutive weeks.

So Jason, why do you think that Vanessa and I had talked about that, that I had committed that, even though I worked at Faith Highway, or it was called Impact Ministries, and even though she worked at Office Depot and Oral Roberts University,

why do you think that we committed as a couple that I’m not gonna jump and quit my jobs, plural, to go full-time until I can book four weddings each week, four weeks in a row. To me it sounds like you guys found, okay, well if we’re going to go full-time you’re going to need X amount of jobs per week in order to sustain, and you guys weren’t there

yet. So you decided you were going to still work your butts off, save up, and then to the point where you had enough of your nest egg, let’s call it, to be able to transition without having the pain of, dear God, we’re running out of money. And this took about two years, this process. I’d like to ask you, how often have you found yourself talking to somebody, I don’t want to give any other details, but talking to an entrepreneur who it’s abundantly clear that they quit their

job and this is now their full-time gig, but they don’t have any leads? Oh, at least a few. And so I just want to make sure that if you’re out there today and that’s you, I hope you learn from this. And so my wife and I started from a very tiny condo, a condominium at 67th and Lewis, which I once considered to be a luxury resort because it was behind a gate.

Jason, I didn’t know that it was behind a gate because that was not a safe part of town, but I thought it was a luxury resort because there was a gate. I mean, why not? And I owned it. And so I worked every holiday. I worked every Thanksgiving. I worked every Christmas Eve. I worked every New Year’s Eve. I worked every Valentine’s. And I even had to fly home from Thanksgiving to put out DJ fires on an annual basis from Houston.

I trained all my DJs from here. I bought all my equipment. I bought the equipment from Guitar Center, but then I would bring it upstairs. And Jason, did you know we used to not have a Guitar Center in Tulsa? I think it’s been around since as long as I can remember, but that does make sense. Yeah, dude. So I had to drive down to Dallas to buy my DJ gear. So I’d buy the DJ gear, then I would bring the DJ gear upstairs, carry it all upstairs, and I would teach the DJs how to become a great DJ within our living room.

Wow. And do you know what neighbors typically thought about this exercise of training the DJs on a microphone how to become a DJ when I am in fact their neighbor in a condominium complex? I bet they loved it. No.

And so I ended up having to rent a mini storage facility. I already had one that I was paying about $80 a month for, but I expanded it up to about $500-$600 a month. So this big old warehouse where it was no heat, no air conditioning, and I say big warehouse, it might be as big as this room. And I kept all the DJ gear, and that’s where I taught all the DJs.

But for the listeners out there who are officing right now in your house, hey, you’re in good company. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple there. Hewlett Packard was started in a little shed. There’s so many businesses that are successes today that started in a shed or a trailer. Yahoo! was started in a trailer. Tony Hsieh was Zappos. When he took over the company, he was officing out of his house for a while there. So you can make it happen. But it was during this time living at the condominium that we bought the DJ trailer. At that point in time we really

needed a trailer and for some reason I got caught up with this romantic and fairy tale idea of buying a trailer while we were visiting Vanessa’s parents on our family vacation to Kentucky. This idea soon mutated into a crazy plan to buy the trailer from this Amish aluminum trailer builder that lived in Napanee, Indiana, which is located within a few hours of my wife’s parents. Looking back at it, I would never buy a new trailer unless it was in foreclosure or something again, but I did it at the time. So I spent way too much money on this beautiful

trailer that quickly got dented and banged. Then I overpaid for artists to paint one of the vehicles. And these guys took forever and they could never really figure it out. I had them paint it so it would become a rolling, beautiful billboard. So let me start right there. Jason, why would you not want to buy a new car ever? Or a new trailer ever? Like a brand new. Why would you never, ever, ever as an entrepreneur ever want to buy a new trailer and or a new van or a new vehicle of any kind?

Well, they’re super expensive for one. So how would you advise to do it? What do you think I did? You’re a smart man. I bet you went to either any and all car dealerships around you or anybody who sold automotive vehicles and you knew the exact model of the vehicle you wanted. You also probably know that a lot of commercial businesses who have vehicles will often sell them to anyone in the automotive industry

so you can get it for much cheaper and it’s the exact same vehicle. Nope. Nope. Didn’t do any of that because I was dumb. And so dumb means you just don’t have the education needed to win. So I went out there and paid brand new, I think I paid 7 grand for this trailer. And I spent like a ton of money on this newer van. It was like as new as I could possibly afford, thinking it would be great.

Well, I used that van, I want to say for like, I used the trailer for like one show. And then it got dented. And I’m like, oh, man. So I thought I’ll just pop the dent out of it because, and then I got another show another dent pretty soon I’m going this thing’s gonna get dented all the time right then this is where it gets even crazier

I paid those dudes to paint the billboard. Mm-hmm. I drew out what I wanted it to look like there it is I drew it out what I wanted it to look like nice and I sketched it out I paid somebody to do a 3d rendering of it and do you know how the painter guy by the way who showed me examples of what he could do because I was contemplating auto wrapping did the trailer for like five grand yeah or paying this dude to paint it auto wrapping at the time was five grand I couldn’t afford that the dude said he’d paint it for a thousand

dollars do you know what he ended up doing with the paint job? What his overall strategy ended up being? Because he showed me pictures of his work where it was with brushes and stuff. Yeah. Guess what he did? Did he do airbrush?

He painted it with… Don’t say acrylic paint. Keep going. Spray paint. Yes! Oh nice. He spray painted it so it looked like it was a moving ode to hip hop.

It was a graffiti. People used to laugh all the time because it looked like it was like I was part of a gang or something. That’s kind of awesome. It’s kind of a purple cow. Except for when you’re selling to mothers of brides. That’s true 44 their 50s in South Tulsa

So however after having already paid them for the majority of the money up front which I by the way you shouldn’t do Jason Why should you not pay an artist up front to paint your vehicle? Well one you want to make sure that they’re gonna get it done in time so it deposits awesome But if you give them all the money, then they’re just like, well, I’ll get it done whenever I want to. So finally, these guys returned it to me two days after they’d promised. What was supposed to be a white trailer with blue logo and blue text

became a ghetto-rific trailer with a puke green, the base color was puke green, dark colored mobile piece of urban half-assed graffiti that screamed figuratively, do not book me because I am homeless and a drug addicted DJ. This van and trailer combo was not commercially viable in any way. It was the worst possible marketing and PR that DJConnection.com could have. It was terrible. It was terrible. I would pull into Panera Bread and people would

look at me like, dear God, where did he get that vehicle? It was horrible at best. It was nauseating to say the least. That trailer looked artistically gross and commercially out of place. Man! And think about it. I spent seven grand on this trailer to buy it new and then I had it painted by this dude who looked like he threw up on my van. It was gross. And I really, really

needed to get over that, but I didn’t. So you know what I decided to do with this guy who painted my vehicle? What’d you do? Call him all the time and harass him about coming back to paint it properly. What’d he say? He said, sure, I’ll call you back. Did he call you back?

No! But I wouldn’t let it go! Right. Why didn’t I let it go? Because it was important to you. It was also important to the business. You wanted to, one, you wanted what you paid for, but it’s also good to be tenacious. But why did that behavior, though, also lead to my poverty, do you think? Buying a brand new van, and then obsessing about it staying, buying a brand new trailer,

and obsessing about it staying dent-free, then paying someone to hand paint it, who I found out later had some drug issues and I could have picked up on that. But then after they screwed it up, why was it my bad to continue to follow up over and over to have them make it right? Why do you think it was my bad? Well, you were spending time focusing on something other than the business. It was important to you, but at the same time, it’s not something that was going to be scalable. There were other fires you’re going to put

out while trying to deal with the whole van situation. Right. Oh, no, but Jason, it gets better. Because they’d screwed up my trailer, I thought, okay, I’ll let you guys make it right. My beautiful 1998 Astrovan. Now, the year was like 2000, bro. This was a hot van okay. Right. So I said can you guys paint it? Absolutely. I said will you stick with them the designs? They said sure man. Those last time I think I think last time bro bro I think last time we were just a little bit off

on what we’re gonna miscommunication but this time bro we’re gonna make it right. Now these are the guys who never had gone back and painted the trailer properly yet. I’m going, okay, I’ll give you a shot. I seriously, it was unbelievable. I paid these guys to paint the van. When I got this thing back, it looked crazy.

Crazy awesome? No, terrible. Oh no. The van was even worse it was even more like aggressive graffiti. It made you not want to book me. Oh no. Yeah but it was all that I had and so there I was driving around with a vehicle that scared people away and a trailer that scared people away and a condo

where I was DJing and training people to DJ upstairs against the rules of the HOA. And that’s how we started. But it was from there that we broke the $100,000 sales mark. And it was during this incredible time of growth that I met every client at Panera Bread, formerly known as St. Louis Bread on 71st and Lewis.

Why do you think I had my wife drop me off at Panera Bread, formerly known as St. Louis Bread on 71st and Lewis. True. Why do you think I had my wife drop me off at Panera Bread every day in the morning and why do you think she picked me up every day at night? Did you guys only have one vehicle? Yes. And I didn’t have office space. That’s true.

So I would meet people at Panera Bread. Now the rule was, you had to buy somebody something or you were loitering. Now the manager at the time, her name was Shelly, and Shelly was the manager of this beautiful restaurant and Farid Hussain was the Panera Bread employee that always went out of his way to make me feel appreciated. He was great to me. He’d always hop on the mic. He’d hop on the Panera mic when I’d walk in and he’d go, ladies and gentlemen, DJ Connection in the house. Every single time I’d walk in or, ladies and gentlemen, he’d

say, ladies and gentlemen, DJ Clay is in the house. He would do that all the time. And so I’d walk in and customers are like, who’s this guy? I’d walk in there, had my shirt shirt tucked in I had a nice dress shirt blue shirt had a tie had a khaki pants and he’d say Clavis what’s going on man how’s the business? The whole Panera staff went out of their way to treat me with respect and I seriously was there six out of seven nights per week for three years Jason three years six out of seven nights for three years.

Do you understand how long that is? That’s a very long time. Do you know how crazy that is when you go there every single day and it starts to become a thing where everybody who goes to Panera once a week will see you? Everybody who goes to Panera every day for their coffee

sees you. Every employee is like, this guy’s here more than us. Most employees work there five days a week. You put in more hours than their manager. Right. I seriously was there six out of seven nights per week, every week, for three years. And I always bought something so that my relationship would be mutually beneficial,

and I always had a good reason for meeting customers there as opposed to meeting at my office. Because customers would say, hey where’s your office? And I’d say, well could you meet me halfway? Where are you coming from? And they said, it didn’t matter Jason where they were coming from.

They could be like, well I live at 71st and Lewis, which is where my condo was. And I would go, let’s meet halfway at Panera Bread. They’d say I am living in Sepulpa. Let’s meet halfway at 71st and Lewis, Panera Bread. I live in Broken Arrow. Let’s go halfway. Let’s meet at 71st and Panera. And I had this move, they’d always ask, well where’s your office? And I’d say, well they have a temporary, we’re officing out of a condo right now, temporary

because we’re in the process of building our new office. It’s kind of under wraps because it’s game changing. I used that line for three years. And it worked every time. It did work. I had to make it happen. Now here’s the deal. Farid Hussain, I’m going to pass this note to you so you can read this real quick. Farid Hussain was the manager at the time and I thought I’m going to interview Farid Hussain and ask him about these years, these times. And so

what you see in front of you is actually the typed out testimonial from Farid Hussain at the time about his recollections of me working at DJ Connection every single day for three consecutive years. Back to you, Jason. Alright, so Farid says, I was a dishwasher and would see the same guy come in every day around the same time and sit at the same spot. He always had the same suit on and he would get the same thing to eat every day. A cinnamon roll and chocolate milk. I mean, that sounds awesome. I started to become friends with Clay and would have his

spot saved and his food ready. He would meet potential clients. Now quick, quick time out. He might have believed I had a cinnamon roll every day. I honestly at that time, I didn’t. I did have a chocolate milk but did not have a cinnamon roll. I think I would buy them for clients sometimes. So I think that was the thing. We continue. Let’s see here. He would meet potential clients who wanted to get married and he offered his DJ service. He drove his old white spray painted van. Ayo. There it is, that’s true. DJ connection on the side of it. You could

see him coming a mile away with a spray painted van. Then you would see this nice looking guy in a suit jump out. Oxymoron. Seriously, people would look at me dressed up in a suit and they’re like, what are you driving? It was the craziest thing. Every single time. It would be like watching a man come out of the anus of a horse. Like Ace Ventura and the Rhino. Right, that’s what it’s like. It just didn’t make any sense! That’s awesome. Okay, continue. Clay did not care what anyone thought. He was on a mission to become a successful DJ.

Panera Bread was the stomping ground for Clay Clark. Most of the staff liked Clay, except for my manager. Oh, she hated me. She hated me. She thought he was annoying and hated how I would have Clay’s whole setup ready for him when he came in at night. Everybody has a Darth Hater. Um, I have known Clay since 2002.

I saw someone who believed he could do anything and never let anyone tell him differently. Ah, see that’s the deal. Now here’s where it gets crazy. The real reason I didn’t want people to meet at my office was because I didn’t have one to meet at my office was because I

didn’t have one. So I was trying to save up the money to afford one, but I just went with the code of, you know, we’re building a new office. It’s going to be an incredible new office space. And finally, when it was time during this time to hire my first DJs, I started interviewing people at Panera Bread. So I started interviewing people at Panera Bread. So I’m interviewing employees at Panera Bread, Josh Smith, Willie Kopp. Now check this out. DJ Willie Kopp had heard of me as a result of an article written by Debbie Blossom for the

Tulsa World. And Josh heard about me through his friend Chris Montag. Josh was working at Golf USA and Willie was an engineer. He was like in his 40s and I’m like 22. And I just remember interviewing this guy and him looking at me going, why am I being interviewed by a 22 year old? I was probably 21 at the time maybe. And so more than any material gain that I was getting at the time, I was really learning how to be confident. Because when you have no office, and you’re officing at Panera Bread, and you’re 21, 22

years old, man it requires a lot of faith. And again I go back to this DJConnection.com was my magnificent obsession. It was where I learned to communicate effectively. I had to convince people that I was going somewhere and that they should join me. I became emboldened. You know, I was like, I could do this.

If I could recruit someone to work for me while working at Panera Bread I could do anything yeah, I remember talking one time to Willie Willie says Here’s the deal we’re at Panera Bread. This is after the whole interview. Here’s the deal. I love your passion We’re at Panera Bread, and I’ve met you twice, and I still haven’t been to an office Do we have an office and I said we have a condominium right and he goes when you say it’s under construction does that

mean you haven’t started and you don’t have the money and I’m like yep he goes I’m in nice so I ended up getting this kind of crazy band of people so DJ Willie worked a part time Josh worked part part, and I was working beyond full time. Because you know how I made my brochures at the time? No.

Using Photoshop. Okay. Now do you know how Photoshop used to work back in the day? No idea. What you would do is you would bring an image in, just like today, and you’d render it. You’d put like an image on like

a name or a text or a logo or a picture and it’s in layers and you can manipulate it and move it around. Well step one is I didn’t know how to use Photoshop. So that’s a problem. So how do you think I learned Photoshop? Because I dropped out of college at Oklahoma State University and Oral Roberts University after studying there and I had classes on Photoshop and I actually got B’s and A’s on my classes, but how do you think I actually learned Photoshop? Well, it’s one of two options. Option one was you bought Photoshop for dummies or option two is you just sat down with it and doinked around until

you figured it out. So here’s what I did. I bought Photoshop, you’re correct, but then I hired a guy who was awesome at it to sit there with me. Even better. And just answer my questions real time. Okay, how do I do this? Okay, I’m doing this. How do I do that? Okay, how do I… In Photoshop back in the day when you’d move in an audio file or move in a picture file it would go… It would just load forever it was it was a painful process but that’s how I learned that’s how I learned and so it during this time this is what I really started reading books and I’m gonna read to you

all the books that I read during that time yeah that really were transformative for me I read in the words of great business leaders by Julie M Finster I read. I read In the Words of Great Business Leaders by Julie M. Finster. I read, again I read In the Words of Great Business Leaders by Julie M. Finster. I read Guerrilla Marketing by J. Conrad Livingston. I read Hip Hop in America by Nelson George, which explains how Russell Simmons started hip-hop. I read How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I read Made in America, Sam Walton

Made in America, Sam Walton with John Hewitt. I read The No Spin Zone by Bill O’Reilly. I read Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. I read The Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing by Robert Kiyosaki. I read The Greatest Salesman in the World, a book about just being relentless on the phones. I read that book. That was powerful.

You say, well Clay, what did you learn from these books? Well when I read The No Spin Zone from Bill O’Reilly, it was a political book, but I realized, man, politics, there’s a lot of spin there. There’s a lot of truthiness. There’s a lot of half-truths. When employees call in and say they’re sick, there’s a lot of truthiness there. There’s a lot of half-truth there. Usually they’re sick as a result of poor life choices. But they are sick. So reading that book, somehow this political

book helped me. Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I learned about the cash flow quadrant and basically how you become an employee, but before you can become self-employed, you’ve got to save a ton of money. That’s why my wife and I didn’t have air conditioning on. Think about that, dude. How hot does it get in Tulsa in July?

It gets wicked hot. Like 100 degrees. And then inside, it also gets stuffy, so I’d say anywhere probably close. I remember when my AC unit went out, it was only about 90 degrees outside. It was like 96 in my apartment. How unbearable is that? It’s the worst, especially if you’ve got a dog.

So for my early clients that booked with me, I don’t want you to visualize this, but I would sit around in my boxers and I had a fan on and I was just dripping sweat all day, every day. I was literally working with just my boxers on. Rich Dad Poor Dad was powerful for me. Hip Hop America taught me that I had nothing to lose. When Russell Simmons started Def Jam, he had nothing. He was a guy with a speech impediment trying to promote his brother’s rap group, Run DMC.

He had nothing to lose. Do you know how hip hop by the way got played on the radio? Do you know how hip hop, there’s a song called These Are The Breaks, the first Def Jam song to hit the radio. Do you know how that song got on the radio? I have no idea. This is true man. Russell Simmons in the book Hip Hop America explains this. He had a bunch of people, he paid a bunch of people to call the radio stations and to request the song.

And no DJs had heard the song. Now once the DJs got enough calls from enough people over a consistent amount of time, what do you think they did? They probably started to consider playing the music. And then they played it one time and they had even more people call and say dude you gotta play that song again and that’s how it happened that’s how he created like a army of about 50 people that would call

all the time and ask for the same songs to be played. It’s like at the beginning of that Wu-Tang song. Now you’re getting into my spiritual zone. So if you’re out there today and you are saying, listen, I don’t know what to do. I condensed all these books into a book

that you can download for free right now called The Start Here Book. If you go to thrivetimeshow.com you can download The Start Here Book absolutely, positively, for free right now called The Start Here Book. If you go to Thrivetimeshow.com, you can download The Start Here Book absolutely positively for free. You can download the book for free and if you want to buy a physical copy, you can buy it on Amazon.com today. I read The

Greatest Salesman in the World. I read The $100,000 Club. Oh, I love that book how to make a hundred thousand dollars is a hundred thousand dollar club How to make a six-figure income by da Benton that book was huge You know why that book was huge Jason. I’ve never even heard of it. I should have well. It was huge because the book is about getting to work early Staying to work late stay at work, over-delivering, and living below your means.

I should read that book. It’s getting to work early, staying at work late, over-delivering, and living below your means. It’s just so powerful because typically when you make a little bit of extra money, Jason, what do most people do when they buy? They make a little extra money. Oh, they spend it, baby.

Right. Then I read this book called The Creature from Jekyll Island, A Second Look at the Federal Reserve by G. Edward Griffin. And that book, I don’t recommend anybody out there reads that book, but it explains to you that the Federal Reserve is not federal and there is no reserve. What? It explains that the Federal Reserve is not federal and there is no reserve.

And how did that help me? Well, it helped me because when I learned that banks actually don’t have any money, that was pretty cool. Because I was trying to get over the idea of growing my business. There’s this phrase I recommend that you believe, that you buy into as an entrepreneur. It’s fake it until you make it. Oh yeah.

Fake it until you make it. Let yeah. Fake it until you make it. Let me read this Elon Musk quote to you again here. Elon Musk says, he says, brand is just a perception and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind. But the brand is simply a collective impression some have about a product. Well, dude, my brandy could not have been worse. The trailers were terrible.

My first DJConnection.com trailers were terrible. My first van was terrible. So what kind of perception do you think people had of me? Probably a low one. Right! So I thought, man, I’m an idiot. I’m trying to fake it till I make it driving the nastiest vehicle of all time. The one thing I had to get right, I wanted that thing to look like it was a sweet commercial thing, like part of a fleet.

Like a Cox cable truck. And it looked terrible. And so it really killed my confidence. But when I read a book, Jason think about this for a second. When you deposit money at the bank. Right. Do you ever deposit cash or do you deposit

just checks? I have. Or is it electronic? I do like all direct deposit. But before working previous jobs I would always be paid a check. And before I had a big boy checking account set up, I would just go and … or before I had a direct deposit set up, I would just go and deposit the check. O’Reilly. I want to blow your mind for a second. Think about this. When you go to the bank

today, however much money is in your bank account, they don’t have that money. O’Reilly. It’s so scary. O’Reilly. Isn’t it? money. It’s so scary. It’s just numbers. I look at it on my phone like, oh, that’s awesome. And I realize there’s an empty room somewhere. Right. Right. And they put that little sign up that says insured by the FDIC. Back in the day, it was up to 100000. Now, when the economy fell apart, the Great Recession, do you know how they fixed that problem? They did a stimulus, they did a bailout, you know, the Federal Reserve got involved.

But they changed the sign to say now insured up to $250,000. It’s called the Federal Reserve and it is not federal. It’s not owned by the federal government. I’m not sure people are aware of this. It’s not federal and there is no reserve. Think about that for a second. I also read the laws of success in 16 lessons by Napoleon Hill. The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley. Now why do you think the Millionaire Next Door book was powerful? Why do you think about it? That book shares

that 88% of America’s millionaires are first-generation millionaires. But in your mind, why do you think that was helpful for me? Honestly, I don’t know. But given the title… Come on, you know. Think deep.

Think deep. Why do you think that being poor as crap, reading a book that explains about the average millionaire in America, why was that powerful for me? Because you know. Oh, I mean it gave you an understanding that you could do this. There we go! See, 88% of Americans, millionaires, 88% listening out there, listen, 88% of Americans who are millionaires are first generation.

That’s a wicked awesome stat. And most grew up poor. A lot of people think it’s harder. And most grew up poor. Yeah. So I was thinking like, well, if you don’t play in the NBA or you’re not a rapper, you

probably can’t do it. But that was so powerful for me. And it taught me about living below my means. Then I read Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, which I talk about constantly on this show. I named my son Aubrey Napoleon Hill after Napoleon Hill. That book changed my life. Through my super intense, self-directed entrepreneurship course, yes, I failed many, many times, but I’m still standing. Right?

I’m still standing. However, when I was going through this time where I’m reading all these things, I was reading all these books, and I felt like I was on this apprenticeship being taught all these skills by all these greats. According to Napoleon Hill, I was reading this quote from Napoleon Hill and he said that 95% of us will never find our life’s passion because we’re told at a young age

to pursue the path of least resistance. This path is filled with the lure of guaranteed benefits and a struggle-free work environment. And if you take this path, you’ll end up where 95% of people end up. When you were a kid, you dreamed about being a singer, a fireman, a baseball player, an army guy, whatever. I mean, Jason, what did you want to be? A ninja? I wanted to be a knight first and foremost. A knight! And then somehow that turned into meteorologist and I have done none of those things. But think about it though, you dreamed to be a knight first and foremost and then somehow that turned into meteorologist and I have

done none of those things. But think about it though, you dream to be a knight or a meteorologist. You see very few of us grew up dreaming about, well, what I want to have is a job with security and benefits. Absolutely not. I want to fight dragons. I want to joust. Let me tell you what happened. How old are you right now? 26.

See, you’re in this interesting time right now where you’re learning a lot and it’s coming to you. Yeah. I call this the three phases, okay? Learn, earn, return. A very wise Jewish man taught me this. He said, Clay, the first 25 to 30 years of your life, you just want to focus on learning. Earning really doesn’t matter that much. You just need to learn.

Soak it all up. Age 30 through 60, man, you need to be buying a franchise, licensing a business, buying a business. You need to get into that. You need to go, but you can’t really do that until you’re a master of management, until you’re a master of sales, until you’re a master

of sales, until you learn those things. Jason, what happens when you own, because you’re a very effective manager now, what happens because if you own a business and you’re out there listening right now and you own a business and you can’t manage like you can now, because you’ve learned that skill over the last couple years, what happens if you can’t manage personality types effectively, what’s going gonna happen? You’re gonna have people that are volatile

You’re gonna have people quit your brand is gonna fail because you don’t know how to effectively manage people’s emotions But also work ethic it’ll just be a bad look How a mind-blowing is it for you? The emotional outbursts that you’ve had to deal with on a daily basis since you become a a manager? Now, not so much. But in the beginning, I just thought, how is this every day? Right. Because most people are controlled by their amygdala, the almond-sized part of their brain that’s the emotional processing center.

And I never considered that. And when the amygdala is on, this is hard neuroscience. This is not my opinion. When the amygdala is being fired, they can’t think critically. So let me just give you an example. Yesterday, Jason, I got a text message from somebody who I haven’t seen in years. And I block people that I don’t want to talk to anymore. But he sent it from a different phone number.

And Jason, I got that text message at like 4 o’clock in the afternoon. And I was totally happy, dude. I was happy. I was taking the kids to Atwoods. And I was just, it was great. Actually, it was 530.

I was going to Atwoods with my kids. Taking them to Atwoods to get chicken feed. Atwoods is kind of an outdoorsy farm store. I go there to get that chicken feed and I got that text message that came through from that person I haven’t seen in years. And this person, by the way, who was terminated, let go, because they kept making bad life choices like showing up to work late, like sleeping with other people’s wives, like

you know if you show up to work late because you’re sleeping with somebody’s wife, that’s weird. Very. But when the employee works for you, when the employee, when the person, think about how weird this is Jason, when the person who works for me is sleeping with another employee who they’re not married to, that gets weird.

True. Because the husband and wife both work for me. That’s weird. And when I get a text message from somebody saying, hey, how come you don’t ever call me and talk to me? I worked with you for years.

Could you please explain to me Jason why you might not want to stay in touch with anybody you fired? Well, just, I mean if I fired them then they obviously, I don’t need any communication with them so it’s better to just cease all communication both previous and future. What if you did stay in touch with anybody you’ve ever fired or anybody who’s ever worked with you period?

Think about it right now. If you stayed in daily contact or weekly contact with everyone you’ve ever managed or everyone you’ve ever fired, how many people would that be? It would be a ton of people and I would lose and it all goes back to that quote that I always hear around you, is your net worth is your net work. If you’re surrounding yourself by people who have either stabbed

you in the back or are horrible employees or just overall negative people, you are going to become that person, and that’s not what I want to do. Think about this out there. A lot of us are going to lose our dreams. No you the listener, you’re not going to lose your dreams, but a lot of people lose their dreams because they start to say, I just want a job with benefits. Imagine what it would be like if we went to a first grade school, Jason, and the teacher

turns to a young kid named Larry and they say, Larry, what do you want to be when you grow up? And Larry says, well, when I grow up, I want to make around the national average. I’d like to be able to make my car payment. I really like to be able to pay off my car before it dies. And I’d like to live in an average house. I’d like to have a job that I’m not passionate about, but it has benefits.

And then I’m really excited about exchanging the majority of my waking hours, five-sevenths of my week for a paycheck, because I just think that sounds like the job for me. My friends, resistance builds strength. Resistance training with weights builds muscles. Resistance training in business builds tenacity, focus, and great business plans. You must decide today that you will not pursue the path of least resistance.

You must pursue your passions. Thank you, Napoleon Hill, for teaching me this. And from time to time, I would doubt occasionally, you know, for five minutes or ten minutes, to get doubted as long as maybe a half hour one day. But from the time I made the commitment to become self-employed, it has been a wild roller coaster road. I’ve learned a lot and I’ve earned a lot. Sure, I’ve had my share of upsets and near-death and near-financial-death moments, enormous

stress, frustration, but I’ve always felt that thrill of achievement for the very first days. I remember going to bed thinking, I wish the days were longer because I have so much I want to do. I’m excited about life and the unbelievable opportunities that our existence on earth and in this country of the United States presents with me. I mean, presents me. I remember each morning that I woke up, I put on my blue shirt. Anyone who knows me knows that I always was wearing

blue shirts at the time, my tie and some khaki pants in preparation to assume the dial and smile position. I would then spend the better part of my pre-work day frantically updating training manuals, typing confirmations from the previous night’s bookings, using the Microsoft Paint program as my database of choice. Jason, why do you think I had to use the Microsoft Paint program? Do you know what Microsoft Paint is? I used to love Microsoft Paint. It’s like a drawing program. Yeah. Why do you think I had to use Microsoft Paint as my database system? Because you didn’t have a database system. Right! And it’s not about resources,

it’s about resourcefulness. Right. So I don’t want to hear, if you’re out there listening today, I don’t want to hear, well what’s the best CRM that you’d recommend, you know, if you’re not making your cold calls. We’ve got to focus on making the cold calls. We’ve got to focus on the dialing and smiling. I don’t want to hear that you need a database when you can’t do your Dream 100 every week. Every week! The Dream 100. Jason, can you preach to me, what is the good news? What is the Dream 100?

The Dream 100 is basically your 100 dream clients that you would like to either work with or be referred by. So influencers for your company. So I’m going to help myself and then your fiance self. What places in Tulsa do most brides go to to have their wedding reception? What kinds of places? Think about it. Let’s see, they go to… Give me one of them. Come on now.

Like by name? Yeah, sure. Post Oak Lodge. It’s a nice event center. It’s like a retreat. That’s one place. Come on, give me another one. We got the Mayo.

You are on two megapoints. Let me give you one more mega point. Give me one more. Five Oaks Lodge, good, mega point for me. Give me another one, another venue in Tulsa, no Googling. Living Arts, it’s an art gallery, it’s where Robert had his. It was awesome. Okay, make a point for you. One deduction for me. Okay, I would not have thought of that.

So the point is, I made a list of the top 100 venues in Tulsa. Yep. On a huge, huge corkboard kind of thing. Yeah. What’s the thing where for papers and reports in college when you’re high school? On a huge, huge cork board kind of thing. What’s the thing for papers and reports in college or high school when you’re presenting and you can fold it in three parts?

Oh, a tri-fold board. Yeah, tri-fold board. There we go. Because you can fold it in three parts. Wow. So I bought that and it said The Road to a Million.

And on it I put the name of every venue in Tulsa. So you can imagine like a big spreadsheet. I put all the venues across the left column. Okay, the name of the venue. So that was all the, column number one was all the venues. Now column two was drop off number one, Jason. Column number two was drop off number two. Column number three was drop off number three. And you know number two, column number three was drop-off number

three, and you know what my rule was? What was your rule? I would, just like when I worked at Impact Ministries, I would call on them all until they cry, buy, or die. And in this case, I meant actually showing up. So Jason, week number one, I show up at the venue, I knock on the door,

Hi, how’s it going? They’re going, fine, what do you want? My name’s Clay Clark and I am the founder of DJConnection.com. We know. Well I’m here to drop off some donuts for you on this glorious Monday. How are you? Great. Well hey, I appreciate you guys so much. If you ever need a bride that’s needing a DJ, we would really appreciate a referral. Yeah, you and every other DJ.

Here’s the deal though. If you refer me, listen to this, listen to this, event planner. This is what I would say. Listen to this. If you refer me to a bride, the first show you refer me to, I won’t even charge the bride. You’re going to be like the hero. I’m going to say, we’re doing it for free on behalf of my good friend over there at … Linda used to manage Cedar Ridge. I said, Linda, on behalf of my good friend Linda, we’ll do your wedding for free.

Think about that. Linda, you’re talking to a bride today about booking their wedding and you say, by the way, if you book with us you get a free DJ. Come on Linda, use that card baby. She says, get out of my office. So I would go back over and over and over to all of them Jason, to all of them.

Always dropping off donuts every week. Step one, I annoyed them all. Oh, yes step two I They kind of started going Disbelief kind of like are you really still still coming back? Week three week four they start to be curious like really you always come here. What is your deal? What is your motive? Because people want to know is it your moat? What’s your motive people don’t want to know your motif? Oh? Your motif is what what’s your motif? What is your deal? What is your motive? Because people want to know, what’s your motive? People don’t want to know your motif.

Oh, your motif is what? What’s your motif? What does the word motif mean? It’s art related. I should know this. It’s like a facade. It’s like a fake. It’s a veneer. It’s a, it’s a, but your motive is like, what’s your core?

Right. Motive is like what’s at your core. How many people do you know, I mean think about this, how many people do we all know who’ve become like an insurance salesman for like a month? Or a real estate agent for two months? Or a fitness nut for a month? Or a week? A week.

I mean so people want to know what’s your real motive? Because they have nothing to gain by referring me So I was starting DJ connection calm I had to be tenacious Yep, and I kept going by every single day, and I kept viewing it like the Augmandino book The richest man I mean we find the book title is not pronounced og Mandino is Augmandino But he could have been an OG.

Right. Og Mandino, the greatest salesman in the world. Og Mandino. He talks about in the book, you have to view the sales process as like you’re hitting an oak tree with an axe. And you’re an idiot if you get super emotional that you’ve hit an oak tree with an axe once

and it doesn’t fall down. You’re an idiot if you hit it ten times and it doesn’t fall down. You’re an idiot if you hit it twenty times and it doesn’t fall down. And you get emotional. If you’re getting emotional because the tree didn’t fall down, the problem is with the Dream 100 Jason is you can’t see it visually. You don’t see the progress being made. And I just stayed consistent, stayed consistent, and then I landed the holiday in select. And the holiday in select used to refer me every single wedding. Nanette and Juanita referred me every single wedding.

It was Nanette, Juanita, and Rochelle. Those three referred me every wedding every week. And then I got Tarp Chapel to refer me. And then I got the Renaissance Hotel. And I got a lady by the name of Dawn, Dawn Leet, to refer me. I got Fascianos, the bridal store, to refer me. That was a tough egg to crack because she wouldn’t refer me. And and so I said here’s the deal I will DJ one party for you for free to show you how humble and awesome I am yeah

And she said okay, so I DJed her husband’s 40th birthday party Yeah, and that’s when I started getting those referrals there you go, but that’s how the dream 100 works. You can’t stop Until you get there. My friends, as I was saying, the resistance builds strength. But each morning I’d wake up and I’d put on that blue shirt and I’d get in that dial and smile position.

I would cold call. I would type up my confirmations using Microsoft Paint. I know it sounds disturbing, but it was effective. That’s all I had. And then precisely at 10 a.m., I would hop on the phone. Now in those days, it was a little odd because hopping on the phone meant calling people

who had no reason to want to hear from me. I pretty much cold called as many people as I could every day to pay the bills, frantically searching for my next paycheck. Man, I loved it and I hated it. The stress and the thrill combined to make a fabulous blend, like ordering a sugar-free drink at Starbucks, then adding a creamy topping to it, and chocolate syrup

and chocolate chunks. By the way, that’s not a move. No. I see a lot of people ordering a sugar-free beverage and then adding sugary things to it. I was excited about the business, but I was also scared because if I didn’t sell anything I would lose.

And honestly, during this time I would call everybody. My philosophy was it’s just a numbers game. I had a great service and I just needed to connect with the right person. Every no I received was just getting me one step closer to my yes. If there was a bridal trade show opportunity, I was in it. If there was a company in the phone book, I called it.

I actually called every single apartment complex in Tulsa because I knew that one of them was going to need some entertainment for their next resident appreciation event. And sure enough, I landed a deal with the Wimbledon Apartments to DJ for $225. And this came after I heard at least 50 no’s. And I put Napoleon Hill’s philosophy of over-delivery to the test every day. If you called me, you were in for an experience.

If making the DJ connection viable meant making my voice hoarse in the process, I did it. I would bring so much alacrity and power to the phone that many people couldn’t resist booking me. Seriously. I was bringing the fire that was required like a T.D. Jake’s sermon on every single call.

Every day I stayed focused on staying active and making 100 calls. Over the years I have seen so many businesses fail because their owner was not willing to hit the phones. I’ve seen so many businesses fail because the owner was not willing to hit the phones, hit the pavement, hit the streets and get the word out. My friends, the cruel reality is that as a young entrepreneur, no one is going to help

you. You have got to bring that kind of enthusiasm. So I brought this humor, this passion, and this determination to the phone and I we joked in the office the first guy who hired me. He called it the passion of the clay He was like dude. It’s on fire if I could just put that in a bottle you’re amazing cuz I would bring it It was like watching the kings of the king of comedy the kings of comedy tour

Yeah, I was in a zone you like comedy. I love comedy. I was in a zone. You like comedy. I love comedy. I was in a zone. I was in my flow state. And then every time the phone would ring, the phone was called the money line. Now do you know what we would do when the money line rang? What would you do? I would say, phone! Get the phone! We would get the phone on the first ring or second ring. And I had one, The phones weren’t connected into a system by the way. I had one phone I would call from and then I had the money line where

the phones would ring to. It’s the number I would leave on the voicemail. Back when people left voicemails, I’d leave a voicemail and say call me back at 918-481-2010 where the fun begins. 918-481-2010 where the fun begins. And if 4 8 1 2010 where the fun begins and if that phone rang, baby I don’t care if I was in the bathroom, which I was if I was eating which I sometimes was I don’t if I had food My mouth I’d spit it out. I was like And that’s if I had to book every every single deal yeah now Jason if I missed somebody if they called me and I missed the call, how many times do

you think I would call that lead before I gave up? You would call them until they answered. Why? Because you’re calling them until they cry, buy, or die. If you have a lead, you don’t want to let your lead go dead. If you call and you’re just like, oh, they didn’t answer.

How much would it help your clients if we could transmute that kind of enthusiasm and energy that I had at DJConnection.com to white hot obsessively call the lead like, if you could bring that kind of machine gun attitude to every one of your clients, how much would that help their businesses if they could be that passionate about calling their leads? 100% it would help their businesses.

But by default, most people are kind of casual. Right. Or non-combative. Like, I called them once, they probably don’t want to see this number pop up. That doesn’t stop telemarketers. I get 800 number scam-likely phone calls every day. They don’t stop. They’re going I get 800 number scam likely phone calls every day. If they don’t stop, they’re going to call me and tell me to answer. That right there is a knowledge bomb.

My friend, at this time, DJ Connection offered three different packages, and I named them myself. The solid gold package, the platinum package, and the double platinum package. Each package had a masculine name, although I was selling my products to women. I gave my products a masculine name because I was not smart enough to market my products to my customers, who were nearly all women. I was designing products that could be marketed to myself. If I could have, I probably, I mean, seriously, I thought for a while naming my first package like the lightsaber or like second package like the dude. I’d buy both. And so it just, it was ridiculous and it didn’t work. But

that’s why most disc jockeys lose is because they’re dressed like morons, they have tattoos on their necks that they’re showcasing, and they’re oddly casual, and the bride is considering trying to hire you for her wedding. And if you have a tattoo on your neck and you’re successful, that’s great. But think about that, Jason. If someone’s first impression of you is you getting out

of a van that’s spray painted and you’ve got a tattoo on your neck and you’re oddly casual, what is the bride thinking? Does this scream trustworthiness? No, unless you’re going to an all-tattooed wedding. There we go. So I ended up parking my… I told my wife, just drop me off. Drop me off at Panera. Don’t park. just drop me off. Drop me off at Panera. Like don’t park.

And drop me off like a block away. Because I don’t want people to see me get into that. Or drop me off early. She dropped me off early so no one ever would see that vehicle. Because when people saw that vehicle it just screamed run away from me. I mean think about it.

Think about that my friends. If you’re out there today and you’re trying to grow that business, there’s probably a fear you have. And fear stands for false evidence appearing real. You probably have a fear of making cold calls. Jason, why do you think somebody has a fear of making cold calls? They’re afraid they don’t have enough time in the day. They’re afraid they’re not gonna know what to say. They’re afraid that they’re gonna get rejected. So here’s what I came up with and this is not a system that anyone should use but this is my system. So I decided that I would start getting on

the phones at 10 a.m. 7 a.m. I’d get up, do all the paperwork, and 10 a.m. I’d get on the phone. And I dreaded getting on that phone. But I did it, but I had to have a game. I think the listeners need to know, I had a game. And this was my game. I had certain days of the week that were cold calling days Here was my game. My wife would leave and I would go down to the gas station. Or I would go to the gas station previously and I would load up my fridge with a ton of beer.

And my move was this. I would cold call and then every time I got a rejection like a hard one not like oh we’re not interested But I got like a screw off buddy. Yeah, I slam a beer Now I haven’t eaten anything yet. Okay, so it’s like 10 in the morning, so I’m starting off like Hey, who’s in charge of this year’s holiday party? Oh, it’s Karen. Okay. Can I talk to Karen sure? Karen hey, this is clay Clark with? Sure. Karen. Hey, this

is Clay Clark with DJ connection. How are you, man? Great, Clay. What do you want? Well, Karen, I was gonna ask you on a scale of one to 10. How happy were you with last year’s DJ? Karen would go nine. Like, well, Karen, what can I do to take that event to the next level? Get off my phone. And I’m like, well, Karen, what can I do to take that event to the next level? Uh, get off my phone. And I’m like, ah, Karen, let me ask you this here.

If I were willing to DJ this year’s party for free, would you be interested in at least talking to me for free or a dollar? I’d just love to meet you. I promise you we could, I’m not interested. Get off my phone and if I got that little extra like get off my phone or screw off I’m like I’m going to pop myself a beer. Now after about three beers every morning

three beers before I had lunch three beers before I had breakfast how was I feeling Jason? Did I have a lot of fear, you think? Probably not. Why? Because you had already faced the rejection and you had a slight buzz going. Why at weddings do you see guys always grab a beer before a toast? They’re nervous.

Right? And I don’t recommend that as a strategy, but I’m just saying that’s what I did. That’s what I did. That was my move. Don’t do that move. But here’s the reward I gave myself. The penalty was like a beer for a rejection. But what was the reward you think

I gave myself? There was a show called The Buzz on 1430 Sports Talk Radio. Have you ever listened to Sports Talk Radio ever just like one time while driving? No, but one of the podcasts I listen to they reference Mike Francesa’s radio show all the time so I’m familiar with it. Okay, well this is what happens is there’s Sports Talk Local Radio and Mark Waddell was a fine host, did a great job and he would have a call-in show. So he would say, alright we’re going through the sports last night.

Lakers beat the Bulls 89-87. The Celtics beat the Yadda Yadda. This much to this much. The Mavericks beat the Yadda Yadda. That kind of thing. And then we go, and now we’re going to get into a hot take.

OSU. Oklahoma State University. This just in, and then they would have some, it always be some controversial thing. They’ve recruited the best running back out of high school in the country. This kid, I’m telling you, this kid is a pedigree. This kid is gonna be the next coming. He’s gonna be the next Barry

Sanders. When this kid gets on the field it’s’s going to change the history of Oklahoma State University. I would say this, guys. When this kid retires, when he goes on to the NFL, they’ll probably change the stadium to name it after this kid. That’s how good this kid is. You know, people would say something like that.

They’d say, well, go ahead, we’re taking calls. Call in, I want to get your take. So this is how it goes. We’re in Oklahoma and there’s Oklahoma State University and there’s Oklahoma University. The people who go to Oklahoma State have a problem with the people who like Oklahoma State. Why do the two fan groups dislike each other so much? It is a rivalry that’s just been instilled

because of the sport. Shen I don’t really get it. I don’t really get into it. O’Reilly Oh yeah, that makes no sense. Shen So I thought what I’m going to do is I’m going to call in whenever I book a deal and say something crazy. So I would dial 460-1430, I dial, boop, boop, boop, boop, 460-1430, the buzz. What’s your take?

And there’s a call screener, right? The call screener, they would screen the call. They’d say, what’s your take? And I’d say, well, I’ll tell you what, I got inside information about this new recruitment class and I’m going to tell you what, when this news gets out, I’m telling you what, I’m just the first of the whistleblowers. The whole program is going to ignite.

It’s going to blow up. It’s like, well, yeah, go ahead. Where do you get your information? I don’t want to divulge my sources. So I’d get through. And now I’m on the radio, live radio, okay?

And they’d say, well, go ahead and call her. What’s your take? take. Now I tell you what, I’ve been here at OSU Stillwater for a long time, run a business out there in this area, and I tell you there’s some dirt being dug up right now, and some of the people you’re talking about, some of them, it’s going to come out and we’re talking about a major, major scandal like the likes you’ve never seen, man. You talk about unethical recruiting, I tell you what, the whole whole school’s going down it’s gonna be

burning down I’m tell you what you’re lucky you better talk about that OSU all you want because this is the last year it’s gonna be around though after the penalties the minute NCAA penalties it will be you talk about sanctions and penalties and I call her where’d you get your sources you think I’m to divulge my sources? My life is at risk for even hopping on this show. I mean, luckily I’ve disguised my voice so that no one knows who I am. Thank you. That is all. And I would leave.

That is awesome. And then people would start calling in like, who the crap is that guy? You can’t just say that. They would argue all day. Seriously, they would argue and these people would get crazy. And then like, you know, a week or two later, they’d be debating like, you know, Drew Bledsoe and why the Patriots were so terrible at the time. They didn’t have Bill Belichick yet and why they were so terrible and how they would never win, how the Cowboys were awesome. And I would call in and boop

boop boop boop boop, 4-6-0, 14-30. Go ahead, caller, what’s your take? And I would say something like, I swear, I’m tired of you guys hitting it, sitting there just ripping And I got a hot take it is hot hot let me through and they love when people call who are divisive Yeah, because it leads to more listeners, right? And so they love it so that they like the controversy so yeah, and I was just a game for me It’s a good thing go ahead caller. What’s your take? I’m like When I I tell you this the Dallas Cow, they have an unbelievably bad situation that’s

about ready to be, it’s like a cinder blocks, it’s got the scams and the scandals and I would just go off on this rant. And then they would, and I do this often, I had different takes talking about how the Cowboys were scams and scandals and how the Patriots, they have a new philosophy. Like I had just totally crazy things that were at no point true. The Patriots are embracing a new philosophy. It’s called teamwork. Makes the dream work.

It’s gonna be awesome. The T stands for can’t tell you, gotta go. And they would like talk about it it it would just stir up the audience and it was it was a thing I did but if you’re out there and I’m sure Jason you’ve been coaching long enough to work with people that refuse to make cold calls yeah if you refuse to make cold calls what’s gonna happen you’re not gonna get any leads you’re gonna wait for leads to come in as opposed to being proactive and then you’re going to resent

yourself or anybody else because you don’t have any growth in your business. So my hope is that this chapter won’t be more meaningless than most political debates. So I encourage you to write, write, write, write this down, write, write this down. Sit, write down. Are you afraid of calling people? Are you afraid of rejection? And if so, why? Step two, I want you to write down

what are the daily revenue producing activities that you need to be doing? What are the daily revenue producing activities that you need to be doing? Three, what is the regimented schedule that you need to be sticking to? Write down your daily regimented schedule. What is that schedule? What does it look like? What is the schedule that

you need to be adhering to? And I’m going to say this to you because I care. When you start off as a self-employed person, you’re going to be working alone. And so you’ve got to be okay with that until you have enough money to hire a team. And when you’re finally making a decent amount of money, you have to take a major pay cut to be able to afford to hire somebody who won’t know what they’re doing. So now you have to work more than ever because you have to take extra time out of your schedule.

Jason, just on a practical level, think about that. If you’re a very good plumber or an electrician and you finally get the business to a place where you’re bringing in $100,000 a year of labor charges, and it’s just you,

how much of that goes to you? Quite a bit. Now what if you hire a guy? What just happened to your $100,000 of labor charges? It became smaller because you’re paying labor on somebody else doing the job. And now you’ve got to teach that guy how to do the job while also doing the job

while also handling the accounting and the sales. And then you’ve got to go further backwards. You’ve got to take one step forward, start the business. Step two, you step two of those backwards. You take one step backwards, think about this, you take one step forward to start the company, but then you take one giant step back to hire your first guy, another step back to hire

your second guy, because someone back to hire your second guy because someone has to help you with your accounting or your phone calls or whatever. Then you get to leapfrog up six steps if you do a good job of training those people. But if not, you go backwards. And that my friend is chapter two of the DJCon in there. I ran from his goats, his chickens, his dogs.

So this guy’s like the greatest marketer you’ve ever seen, right? His entire life, Clay Clark, his entire life is marketing. Okay, Aaron Antis, March 6th and 7th, March 6th and 7th, guess who’s coming to Tulsa, Russia? Ooooooh, Santa Claus? No, that’s March. March 6th and 7th, we’re going to be joined by Robert Kiyosaki, Robert Kiyosaki!

best-selling author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, probably the best-selling, or one of the best-selling business authors of all time, and he’s going to be joined with Eric Trump. He’ll be joined by Eric Trump. We got Eric Trump and Robert Kiyosaki in the same place. In the same place. Aaron, why should everybody show up to hear Robert Kiyosaki? Well you got billions of dollars of business experience between those two, not to mention many, many, many millions of books have been sold.

Many, many millionaires have been made from the books that have been sold by Robert Kiyosaki. I happen to be one of them. I learned from the man. He was the inspiration. That book was the inspiration for me to get the entrepreneurial spirit as many other people. Now since you won’t brag on

yourself, I will. You’ve sold billions of dollars of houses, am I correct? That is true. And the book that that kick-started it all for you, Rich Dad Pornhead, the author, the best-selling author of Rich Dad Pornhub, Robert Kiyosaki, the guy that kick-started your career. He’s gonna be here. He’s gonna be here.

I’m umped. And now Eric Trump, people don’t know this, but the Trump Organization has thousands of employees. There’s not 50 employees. The Trump Organization, again, most people don’t know this, but the Trump Organization has thousands of employees and while Donald J Trump

was the 45th president of these United States and soon to be the 47th president of these United States he needed someone to run the companies for him and so the man that runs the Trump organization for Donald J Trump as he was the 45th president of the United States and now the 47th president of the United States is Eric Trump. So Eric Trump is here to talk about time management, promoting from within, marketing, branding, quality control, sales systems, workflow design, workflow mapping, how to build.

I mean, everything that you see, the Trump hotels, the Trump golf courses, all their products, the man who manages billions of dollars of real estate and thousands of employees is here to teach us how to do it. You are talking about one of the greatest brands on the planet from a business standpoint. I mean, who else has been able to create a brand like the Trump brand? I mean look at it and this is the man behind the

business for the last pretty much since 2015. He’s been the man behind it so you’re talking we’re into nine going into ten years of him running it and we get to tap into that knowledge That’s gonna be amazing now think about this for a second You know would you buy a ticket just to see a Robert Kiyosaki and Eric Trump of course you would of course you would But we’re also gonna be joined by Sean Baker. This is the best-selling author the guy who invented the carnivore diet. Oh yeah. Dr. Sean Baker, he’s been on Joe Rogan multiple times.

He’s going to be joining us. So you’ve got Robert Kiyosaki, the best-selling author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Eric Trump, Sean Baker. The lineup continues to grow, and this is how we do our tickets here at the Thrive Time Show. If you want to get a VIP ticket, you can absolutely do it. It’s $500 for a VIP ticket.

We’ve always done it that way. Now, if you want to take a general admission ticket, it’s $250 or whatever price you want to pay. And the reason why I do that and the reason why we do that is because we want to make our events affordable for everybody. I grew up without money.

I totally understand what it’s like to be the tight spot. So if you want to attend, it’s $250 or whatever price you want to pay. That’s how I do it. And it’s $500 for a VIP ticket. Now, we only have limited seating here with the most people we’ve ever had in this building was for the Jim Brewer presentation. Jim Brewer came here that the legendary comedian Jim Brewer came to Tulsa and we had 419 people that were here. 419 people. And I thought to myself, there’s no more room. I felt kind of bad that a couple people had VIP seats in the men’s restroom. No, I’m just kidding. But I felt, so I thought, you know what, we should probably add on.

So we’re adding on what we call the upper deck or the top shelf. So the seats are very close to the presenters, but we’re actually building right now. We’re adding on to the facility to make room to accommodate another 30 attendees or more.

So again, if you want to get tickets for this event, all you have to do is go to thrive timeshow.com, go to thrive timeshow.com. When you go to thrive timeshow.com, you’ll go there, you’ll request a ticket, boom. Or if you want to text me, if you want a little bit faster service, you say, I want you to call me right now. Just text my number. It’s my cell phone number. My personal cell phone number, we’ll keep that private between you, between you, me, everybody, we’ll keep that private, and anybody, don’t share that with anybody except for everybody, that’s my private cell phone number, it’s 918-851-0102, 918-851-0102, I know we have a lot of

Spanish-speaking people that attend these conferences. And so to be bilingually sensitive, my cell phone number is 918-851-0102. That is not actually bilingual. That’s just saying Juan for a one. It’s not the same thing. I think you’re attacking me.

Now let’s talk about this. Now, what kind of stuff will you learn at the Thrive Time Show workshop? So Aaron, you’ve been to many of these over the past seven, eight years. So let’s talk about it. I’ll tee up the thing and then you tell me what you’re gonna learn here. Okay? Okay. You’re gonna learn marketing, marketing and branding. What are we gonna’re gonna dive into you know, so many people say, oh, you know, I got to get my brand known out there like the Trump brand. You want to get that brand out there. It’s like, how do I actually make people know what my business is? And make it a household

name, you’re gonna learn some intricacies of how you can do that. You’re gonna learn sales so many people struggle to sell something. This just in, your business will go to hell if you can’t sell. So we’re gonna teach you sales. We’re gonna teach you search engine optimization. How to come up top in the search engine results. We’re gonna teach you how to manage people. Aaron, you have managed, no exaggeration, hundreds of

people throughout your career and thousands of contractors and most people struggle with managing people. Why does everybody have to learn how to manage people? Well because first of all people are, you either have great people or you have people who suck and so it could be a challenge, you know, learning how to work with a large group of people and get everybody pulling in the same direction can be a challenge. But if you have the right systems,

you have the right processes and you’re really good at selecting great ones. And we have a process we teach about how to find great people. When you start with the people who have a great attitude, they’re teachable, they’re driven, all of those things, then you can get those people all pulling in the same direction.

So we’re gonna teach you branding, marketing, sales, search engine optimization. We’re gonna teach you accounting. We’re gonna teach you personal finance, how to manage your finance. We’re going to teach you time management. How do you manage your time? How do you, how do you, how do you, how do you get more done during a typical day?

How do you build an organization? If you’re not organized, how do you do, how do you do organization? How do you build an org chart? Everything that you need to know to start and grow a business will be taught during this two day interactive business workshop. Now let me tell you how the format is set up here.

Again folks, this is a two-day interactive 15… Think about this folks, it’s two days. Each day it starts at 7am and it goes until 5pm. So from 7am to 5pm, two days. It’s a two-day interactive workshop. The way we do it is we do a 30-minute teaching session and then we break for 15 minutes for a question-answer session. So Aaron, what

kind of great stuff happens during that 15-minute question-answer session after every teaching session? I actually think it’s the best part about the workshops because here’s what happens. I’ve been to lots of these things over the years. I’ve paid many thousands of dollars to go to them and you go in there and they talk in vague generalities and they’re constantly upselling you for something trying to get you to buy this thing or that thing or this program or this

membership and you don’t, you leave not getting your very specific questions answered about your business or your employees or what you’re doing on your marketing. And what’s awesome about this is we literally answer every single question that any person asks. And it’s very specific to what your business is.

And what we do is we we allow you as the attendee to write your questions on the whiteboard. And then we literally, as you mentioned, we answer every single question on the whiteboard. And then we take a 15 minute break to stretch and to make it entertaining when you’re stretching.

And this is a true story. When you get up and stretch, you’ll be greeted by mariachis uh there’s gonna probably be alpaca here uh llamas helicopter rides a coffee bar a snow cone uh i mean there’s just you had a crocodile one time that was pretty interesting you know i i i should write that down and i’m sorry for that one guy that we lost the crocodile we duct taped its face so that right we duct taped it it was a baby crocodile write that down and I’m sorry for that one guy that we lost the crocodile we

duct-tape this it’s face so that right we duct tape baby crocodile and duct tape yeah duct tape around the mouse it didn’t bite anybody but it was really cool passing that thing around and I should I should do that I should we have a small petting zoo that will be assembled it’s gonna be great and then you’re in the company of hundreds of entrepreneurs. So there’s not a lot of people in America today. In fact,

there’s less than 10 million people today, according to us debt clock that identifies being self-employed. So if you have a country with 350 million people, that means you have less than 3% of our population that’s even self-employed. So it’s, That means you have less than 3% of our population that’s even self-employed. So you only have 3 out of every 100 people in America that are self-employed to begin with.

And when Inc. magazine reports that 96% of businesses fail by default, by default you have a 1 out of 1000 chance of succeeding in the game of business. But yet the average client that you and I work with, we can typically double this. No hyperbole, no exaggeration. I have thousands of testimonials to back this up. We have thousands of testimonials to back it up. But when you work with a home builder, when I work with a business owner, we can typically double the size of the company

within 24 months. And you Double and you say double? Yeah, there’s businesses that we have tripled, there’s businesses we’ve grown 8x, there’s so many examples you can see at thrivetimeshow.com but again this is the most interactive best business workshop on the planet. This is objectively the highest rated and most reviewed business workshop on the planet and then you add to that

Robert Kiyosaki the best-selling author of Rich Dad Poor Dad you add to that Eric Trump the man that runs the Trump Organization you add to that Sean Baker now you might take but clay is there more I need more Well, okay, Tom Wheelwright is the wealth strategist for Robert Kiyosaki. So people say, Robert Kiyosaki, who’s his financial wealth advisor? Who’s the guy who manages, who’s his wealth strategist? His wealth strategist, Tom Wheelwright, will be here. And you say, Clay, I still, I’m not going to get a ticket unless you give me more.

OK, fine. We’re going to serve you the same meal both days. True story. We have we cater in the food and because I keep it simple, I literally bring in the same food both days for lunch. It’s Ted Esconzito’s, an incredible Mexican restaurant. That’s going to happen. And Jill Donovan, our good friend, who is the founder of Rustic Cuff. She started that company in her home and now she sells millions of dollars of apparel and products. That’s rustic cuff dot com. And someone says, I want more. This is not enough. Give me more. OK.

I’m not going to mention their names right now because I’m working on it behind the scenes here. But we’ve got one guy who’s given me a verbal to be here. And this is a guy who’s one of the wealthiest people in Oklahoma. And nobody really knows who he is

because he’s built systems that are very utilitarian that offer a lot of value. He’s made a lot of money in the, what, it’s the, it’s where you rent, it’s short term, not, it’s where you’re renting storage spaces.

He’s a storage space guy. He owns the, what do you call that? The rental, the- A storage space? Storage units. This guy owns storage units, he owns railroad cars, he owns a lot of assets that make money

on a daily basis, but they’re not like customer facing. Most people don’t know who owns the mini storage facility or most people don’t know who owns the warehouse that’s passively making money. Most people don’t know who owns the railroad cars, but this guy, he’s giving me a verbal that he will be here and we just continue to add more and more success stories. So if you’re out there today and you want to change your life, you want to give yourself an

incredible gift, you want a life-changing experience, you want to learn how to start and grow a company, go to time show calm go there right now Drive time show calm request a ticket for the two-day interactive event again the day here is March 6th and 7th March 6th and 7th We just got confirmation Robert Kiyosaki best-selling author rich dad poor dad. He’ll be here Eric Trump the man who leads the Trump organization It’s gonna be a blasty blast. There’s no upsells. Uh, Aaron, I could not be more excited about this event. I think

it is incredible. And there’s somebody out there right now you’re, you’re watching and you’re like, but I already signed up for this incredible other program called smoke your way to thin. I think that’s going to change your life? I promise you this will be 10 times better than that. Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking. Don’t do the Smoke Your Way to Thin conference.

That is, I’ve tried it, don’t do it. Chain smoking is not a viable, I mean it is life changing. It is life changing. If you become a chain smoker it is life changing-changing. Not the best weight loss program to fight. Right, not really. So if you’re looking to have life-changing results in a way that won’t cause you to have a stoma, get your tickets at Thrivetimeshow.com.

Again, that’s Aaron Antis. I’m Clay Clark reminding you and inviting you to come out to the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show workshop right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I promise you it will be a life-changing experience We can’t wait to see you right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma

 

Transcribed with Cockatoo