The 6 Steps to Mastering the High Art of Management Follow Up

Audio Transcription

Learn Management Tips From The Business Coach : Podcast Transcript

Voice-over: Now, broadcasting from the center of the universe and the thrive15.com world headquarters.

Presenting the world’s only business school without the BS with optomitrist and entrepreneur Dr. Robert Zoellner and the former school business administration entrepreneur of the year and you’re here Clay Clark. It’s the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170. Three, two, one, boom.

Clay: All right Thrive nation welcome back to the inspiration station this is your audio dojo of mojo. Many of you have begun to turn your automobile. The interior of your automobile into a mobile classroom. This idea that you’re no longer driving down the road just saying to yourself, “I can’t believe the traffic is terrible”, you’re beginning to in enlighten yourself. It’s almost become Z, a dojo, a dojo of just auditory learning mastery. You’re learning entrepreneurship. Z how exciting is it that people can now learn how to start and grow a business in their car?

Dr. Zoellner: It’s very exciting and that’s what they’re doing. It’s not drive time for them anymore it’s class time. It’s like, “Oh, 5 o’clock, where’s my car? Go get my car.” When they listen to the traffic report and where there’s the accident they drive towards that because this will slow me down even more. This might catch the entirety of the show.

Clay: Here’s the deal with thrivers. My name is Clay Clark I’m the former SBA entrepreneur of the year and I am a business coach. To my right and we’ve got a guy by the name of Dr. Robert Zoellner. I’m just going to read off some of the things he’s involved in. He has an auto auction you can go to z66aa.com and check it out. It’s a real thriving automotive business then you can go check out Dr. Robert Zoellner in associates. It’s an eye care, a clinic. You can go to drzoellner.com. You can check it out it’s a real thriving business. You can go check out his Rockin Z Ranch, you can check out Dr. Zzz’s sleeps in, drzzzs.com.

I mentioned all these because we’re in a culture right now where there’s a lot of smoking mirrors, charlotte and people teaching you how to be successful but they’d never done it and Dr. Z has been a guy who has been doing it. He hasn’t done a whole lot of PR, hasn’t sat there and done a whole lot of– Z has written 47 books like myself. I mean, the guy, he’s just been running business and doing it the right way. Sir, it’s an honor to take you away from the business for a few minutes here just two days before Thanksgiving to have you on the show. Thank you for being here.

Dr. Zoellner: Well, I’m glad to be here Clay and we both have a passion for business coaching. We both have that passion and the problem is there’s only so many hours in a day. It’s fun to not only have our Thrive 15 platform where we have thousands of videos that people can get on and learn from where we have our in-person workshops now here at Thrive 15 world headquarters but we now also have this radio show which is a lot of fun but then also it’s archived at thrivetimeshow.com. If you miss an episode, you miss a segment you got to go into truck stop and then get your IC or whatever you’re drink of choice is and ran out you miss part of the show, thrivetimeshow.com, they’re all archived down there and you can just binge watch or listen to as many as you want.

Clay: I will say that this week I talked to a young lady who lives in New Mexico who told me that her mother went to thrivetimeshow.com and she listens to all of our podcasts and her mom sent her one and said, “Hey, you should listen to this show it’s very helpful for me and I think it would help you with your business.” and they’re wanting to start a sporting goods store. Now, they’re listening. We have people all over the world listening and one guy who is a– not only a faithful listener but a guy who is a very successful Telsa entrepreneur, basketball player turned coach turned now the head of his own basketball facility or he mentors young kids on how to become a successful basketball players just like you and I mentor young entrepreneurs teaching them how to become successful entrepreneurs. It’s Coach Calvert. Coach Calvert how are you, sir?

Coach Calvert: I’m doing great it’s good to here to be with you guys here.

Clay: I want to ask if somebody wants to– if they have a kid and your kids on the bench riding the pine. You know the whole deal-

Dr. Zoellner: Riding the pine.

Clay: -well, they’re just are a good kid but they’re just riding that pine, they’re not playing, they’re not getting any playing time maybe they are the eighth man on a team where you only five guys get to play on the court. Where could people get a hold of you and learn more about the score basketball program?

Coach Calvert: All you got to do is Google score basketball or Telsa Basketball you’ll find us there. It’s easy to find.

Clay: Yes, absolutely. Today, we’re talking about today. The six steps to mastering the high art of management follow-up. Basically how to stop dropping the ball and by– let me coach you through this. If you have a business, here’s a scenario. You asked Billy to do something, you say, “Billy, I need you to do ABC because we have a customer who will be here to pick it up today because today is Tuesday and today is the last day we’re open before Thanksgiving. You got to have all these things done. The client’s going to come by and pick up the stuff.” Billy says, “Z, I’m going to get it done, I’ll do it.” Boom.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes, of course, yes.

Clay: The cost in the-

Dr. Zoellner: He’s probably means that.

Clay: Yes. Now, it’s 5 o’clock on a Tuesday, right? Before Thanksgiving and the customer shows up and Billy didn’t do the job, he dropped the ball. Exactly. The customers go and, “Hey, I’m here to pick up my prints.” You’re a print shop and you go, “Billy, yes, sure let me go check with Billy”, and Billy goes, “I can’t lie, I wanted to do it but what had happened was I was very dizzy with all the Thanksgiving pageantry and the turkey and I forgot.” Z, how often is it that people forget to do what they’re supposed to do and they drop the ball in business. How often?

Dr. Zoellner: It happens a lot. It happens a lot. The more employees you have the more it’s going to happen. I remember back in the day I would go through the day and I didn’t want to stop the merry go round to say, “Oh, this is wrong, this is wrong, it’s wrong.” Throughout the day I would make post-it notes, I would do post-it notes and I wouldn’t just leave a trail of post-it notes behind for people to find that– it was a big thing when they’ve got through the day without a post-it note. That’s a celebration.

Clay: I’m going to brag on Eric Chuck one of our show producers.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes. Chuck.

Clay: He’s here in the room here.

Dr. Zoellner: Hey Chuck, make sure bring some pie for Thursday show.

Clay: Now, the Thrive Time Show, see it’s live every day. What happens is we have to record the show and get the show– we have to record the show and the show has to be aired for listener or has to happen, you record it, then you listen to it. If he doesn’t follow all these steps right, all these check lists then what happens is you turn on the radio and we’re not here. He has to ground up all the equipment make sure that it is working, the microphones, the sound, the lights, everything that we do to make it live on Facebook live. There’s a lot of steps and if he drops the ball it’s very obvious because it’s a live show. Now, for a lot of businesses though it’s not as obvious Z. If someone drops the ball people don’t find out until later. I’m going to give you a little fun fact toy. November 26th, is what they call “small business day” and Z, I don’t like that day.

Dr. Zoellner: Why is that?

Voice-over: You’re listening to the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170.

Clay: Well, here’s the deal American Express launched small business day. The senate unanimously passed resolution to support small business day. President Obama has even talked about small business day but I don’t like it and I’ll tell you why.

Dr. Zoellner: Tell me why?

Clay: Because your business won’t stay small unless you’re terrible at executing. If you continue to do a bad job year after year then you’re going to continue to be small.

Dr. Zoellner: No, no, no. I’m going to fight you in this. Can we pick a fight right now?

Clay: Yes, let’s get into it. Let’s argue.

Dr. Zoellner: If your business is bad you go out of business. If your business is just good, you’ll stay flat. But we’re here to coach you up on how to make your business great.

Clay: DJ Connection is an example. DJ Connection, I won the award back in the day from the small business administration as being the entrepreneur of the year.

Dr. Zoellner: Congratulations.

Clay: Thank you very much. I was very honored to receive it but years later I wasn’t really in the category, I couldn’t qualify because of the number of people that worked with us. We had grown and Coach Calvert your business. You started just you and your wife you started this business you were working out of a is it with Champions is that right?

Coach Calvert: Yes.

Clay: Now, you have hundreds of kids that come to score basketball. You’re the region’s largest basketball coaching facility, is that right?

Coach Calvert: Yes, and I’m the perfect example of that because I stayed flat lined for many years about 15 years until I got– I started thinking then I got to get better to this business side. I know I was great at the basketball side but I was doing everything wrong business side.

Clay: Now, thought you get most of your businesses from word of mouth, people finding on Google, people finding you through Facebook ads. For the entrepreneur listening right now whose business is staying perpetually small and people are forgetting to do the daily check list. What advice would you have or what are the struggles that you’ve had personally as a business center. What advice would you have for someone who’s going, “People keep dropping the bomb on my business.”

Coach Calvert: Well, number one is make changes, don’t stay the same. Assume that you’ve got changes, things that you can do to be better and don’t be afraid of those changes, don’t be afraid of those mistakes. You can’t be afraid of failing. Which at times I got to admit I was. For instance I was terrible at billing, just terrible. I had the wrong person in billing.

Clay: I remember that.

Coach Calvert: Wasn’t doing it right. You used to make fun of me all the time, you would criticize me, you told me-

Clay: I didn’t criticize, I never made of though.

Coach Calvert: I think you wanted to fire myself. Of course, I was the business so you couldn’t fire me but yes I had to make changes and I had to make them intelligently step by step, go through and look at every part of my business that I could.

Clay: Now, here’s the deal thrivers, step number one, if you want to teach your team to stop dropping the ball. Step number one on this short Tuesday super show before Thanksgiving. Embrace that quality and quantity are not enemies. Z, so many people believe that you can’t have high quantity and high quality and if that were to be true then as Disney World got bigger it would get worse. if that were true–

Dr. Zoellner: I know. It drives me crazy.

Clay: They say it all the time. They say, “Quality and quantity, I’m focused on quality, I’m not focused on quantity.” Sure, so Southwest Airlines doesn’t care if their planes land or get there safely.

Dr. Zoellner: Or on time, or on time.

Clay: All they care about is quantity. Go ahead and tackle that idea.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes. Exactly. You said it perfectly. Walt Disney so big, we’ve got 50,000 people coming in monthly or I don’t know what the numbers are. There 40,000 people working there.

Clay: This just in from Forbes, this is a verified fact over 1 million people walk through the gates of Walt Disney World per week.

Dr. Zoellner: Wow, okay per week. I was way off. Sorry Mr. Disney, but the thing about is the idea that, that many people come to and you go, well, it’s just too many to give all of them a quality experience. We know we’re going to fail more now because of that. That is just a wrong mindset and I here all the time in business.

Clay: People said I want to grow too fast because basically like if I– if Roy doesn’t actually install every granite countertop himself, then it can’t be Roy’s granite countertops LLC anymore because Roy was focused on quality not quantity focus on doing ourselves. Boom.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes, when I talk to other doctors and other sometimes optometrist, sometimes physicians and in other areas and that’s the thing they say they go, “I don’t, you know, we can’t see too many patients because we’re focused on quality.

Clay: I’m more focused on- they usually say like this, “I’m more focused on qualities here, as an optometrist I care about the human eye, ocular capacity, the cornea.”

Dr. Zoellner: “Too many patients is impossible to have quality.” No, you just have to have the systems, you have to you have to document them, you have to hire the right people, you have to implement the things that we teach on the show, and you can. You can have both, I’m telling you can.

Clay: Quality and quantity Thrivers you can have that growth. Step number two. Turn your entire system into a visual workflow. Thrivers stay tuned this is a special pre-Thanksgiving edition.

Speaker 1: This show is brought to you by Adobe Creative Cloud. If your photographer, graphic designer, video editor, podcaster, business owner or just creative genius, this is for you all of your creative tools all in one place. Creative Cloud includes the entire collection of creative Apps for desktop from favorites like, Adobe Photoshop and illustrator to new tools like Adobe experience design. Check this out you can create podcasts seamlessly in high quality with Adobe Audition. Did you miss the exposure or looking to create a stunning and beautiful photo? You got to download light room.

The latest release of adobe creative cloud is here with incredible new features in Adobe Photoshop Illustrator and all of your favorite apps, plus millions of adobe stock assets and new premium images are built right in. You can turn your brightest ideas into your best work, fast. Make sure that you check out [email protected], once again, [email protected]

Voice-over: Live local now you’re listening to the Thrivetime show on top radio 1170

Clay: Hello thrive nation, welcome back to this– it’s going to be the inspiration station for entrepreneurs .You see, as an entrepreneur what happens is, you want to start or grow a business and in fact according to Forbes 57% of you listening right now that’s you. You want to start or grow a business but what happens is, is that you may be enrolled in a college, maybe you went to a workshop, maybe went to seminars, but you’re just not getting that practical business school without the BS training that you’ve been looking for. You’re hearing a lot of things, you’re reading a lot of books but you’re not getting that real stuff behind the stuff. My name is Clay Clark I’m the former SBA entrepreneur of the year.

If you Google me you’ll see that I’ve been involved in quite a few industries from real estate, to photography, to entertainment, to marketing, the PR what I do, I just do businesses. I am joined here with the guy has been sort of my business mentor, kind of my business Yoda but he’s too beautiful to be Yoda if you’re on Facebook live. He’s really my broda. It’s Dr. Robert Zoellner. Sir how are you?

Dr. Zoellner: I’m so excited to be here on Tuesday, but the problem is Tuesday we only do a one hour show.

Clay: It’s a very small show.

Dr. Zoellner: It’s a quick show we got it we got a deep dive in because people want practical tips on how to start or grow their business.

Clay: We’re going to go 90 miles an hour today here coach with Coach Don Calvert. Coach Don Calvert this guy is a local Tulsa entrepreneur, he’s the founder of “Score Basketball”, we’re talking today about the six steps to mastering the high art of management follow-up. You’re trying to prevent somebody on your team from dropping the ball. Step number two you must turn your entire system into a visual workflow whether that be on a whiteboard, a sheet of paper but everyone on your team has to know what your including with your system or your service or your product everybody on your team has to know, it has to be documented somewhere.

You can’t just be going out of your head. You must work to have these things included on a piece of paper so that your team doesn’t miss a step and drop the ball. Coach Calvert I want to ask you this you have a Christmas camp upcoming soon. Is it right? A Christmas camp?

Coach Calvert: Yes.

Clay: When is the Christmas camp?

Coach Calvert: It is after Christmas. I believe it’s a 27 through the 31st.

Clay: What all do you include in the Christmas camp? What’s all included in that thing.

Coach Calvert: It is scheduled out every day where we do ball handling drills, dribbling drills but then we also add in attacking the basket, jumpers off the dribble and the pass, developing the footwork, parents always want kids to get more aggressive. I want my kids would be more confident so those are the two things we really emphasizes. Got to be aggressive, got to be confident.

Clay: Who should be attending this Christmas camp who should we doing that?

Coach Calvert: Really, everyone from five years old up to 18 there with their own age group and we’ll make it as complicated and as easy as we need to be.

Clay: For anybody from ages 5 you’re saying to what?

Coach Calvert: 18. After high school.

Clay: They’re the ones who should be an attending this.

Coach Calvert: Will have 70, 80, 90 kids there and they will be at the work best workouts they’ve ever had

Clay: Why have you had to take the time to put it onto a brochure? I mean, why did you have to do that as opposed to just you verbally telling other coaches what they’re supposed to be doing?

Coach Calvert: Well I didn’t want to just wing it. We want everything to be professional, we want everything to be on time, just as hard-working as Chris working as it can be, I don’t like down time, I don’t like sloppiness I want everything to be sharp.

Clay: Now doctor Z– for those who watch on Facebook live the man who left the box that rocks

Dr. Zoellner: I left box of rocks.

Clay: Headphones off leaves throws me into a mental conundrum, I’m going–

Dr. Zoellner: I know, I wish I could’ve watched you while I was doing that in my thing.

Clay: You went over here, what did you bring into the background on Facebook live?

Dr. Zoellner: I’m telling you what. Some people go, “Who are these guys? Are they really? Are they legit? Is this for it’s a real? Is this a real thing?” Number one, number two so that’s why we have the box of rocks you can see your studio, you can see our headquarters of Thrive Empire, okay? Just today, you showed me how you white boarded a new policy and procedure that we’re going to do for our in-person workshops and I just right now rolled up here so everybody on Facebook live can see that we are putting like, to say, putting our money where our mouth is. We are implementing the things, we’re telling you to do on the show. We’re actually doing the things, we’re telling you to the things about the thing.

Clay: You know when I did this too by the way. I did this between 3:00 am and 9:00 am because I needed to be able to think clearly without interruptions or distractions for about six hours.

Dr. Zoellner: Things called humans that didn’t want them messing with you.

Clay: Because people always come in and ask questions and like, “Are we going to offer Thanksgiving? Do we have to work on Wednesday? Can I eat pie? There’s somebody who drink my coffee.” I’m trying to get this done. Thrivers if you’re looking at this on Facebook live what we found out is there is there are over the last really up for years, three years. I’ve always had been successful as a business consultant since I sold a few my businesses coaching businesses

Voice-over: You’re listening to this rash on show on talk radio 1170.

Clay: Z’s always had a lot of success in his businesses. What’s happened is, there’s thousands of people who are wanting to come out to our workshops and when you come out to thrive15.com workshop I have two promises that I could make to you. One, is every single person listening right now you can afford it because we have a scholarship program in place. If you’re struggling financially, you and I grew up financially challenged. We don’t have a bunch of money, we’ve started from nothing. We’ve made it affordable, so if you call and you call for pricing and if you can’t afford it, we will make it work for you. Tell them.

Dr. Zoellner: We’re going to make you an offer you can’t refuse.

Clay: We do that. But the second thing is, its practical detailed entrepreneurial training. We had to make a whiteboard to map out the sequential events, the step-by-step processes that we’re going to be implementing during our workshops because if you come to Tulsa and you shadow me for a day, I do a workshop every hour on the hour but if you come to a workshop here starting here soon, when have these interactive workshops people from all over the planet fly-in. We have these people ready booking tickets. It’s a different thing, there’s 50 people in the room now, not five people. It’s a different thing we had to build a workflow. We had to do it.

Dr. Zoellner: We did it on the whiteboard and that’s how you do it. You put it down because sometimes you think something but when you put it down or you write it out that you can’t even go, “Oh, wait, that can’t work. I can’t do that thing before this thing so I got to flip those things. Yes, oh, wait a second, I got to add this thing because you can’t go from this thing to that thing without thing in the middle.”

Clay: I’m going to tell you one thing that I discovered by building this workflow. After working with thousands of customers, thousands of couching clients all over the world. I discovered that most entrepreneurs have one problem that has to be solved first, Z, before — otherwise everything else doesn’t matter. You know what the problem is?

Dr. Zoellner: No, tell me.

Clay: Sales.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes.

Clay: If you can’t sell your business will go to [imitates declining sound]. It’s not going to work.

Dr. Zoellner: Well, I looked at the schedule and for those of you listening today, Thanksgiving, we’re actually going to do the show and we’re having the steps that increasing your sales on Thanksgiving a little teaser for Thursday coming up two days from now. While you eat your pie, Chad, by the way make sure bring us a pie that day, while you’re eating your pie its pie that we drive Thrive Time at pie time.

Clay: Thrive Time at pie time, now, step number three. Step number three to keep your team from dropping the ball. You have to do a checklist for everything. Now, coach, I will give you the floor to go off here. Try to keep your bathroom clean. Checklists try to get the teammates to keep the bathroom clean. Why is it so hard to keep people– to hold people accountable to implementing the checklists after you’ve actually made them?

Coach Calvert: For one, as owner I have to be willing to challenge them and to confront them. A lot of people don’t like that tension that you have with employees and I’ve had to fire two or three people because they weren’t doing the checklist. You want to be a nice guy. You want to care about them and I really do, but there comes a point where enough is enough. I’ve got checklist now for everything.

Clay: Z, are you excited about holding people accountable? Does it stress you out? When you have to hold someone accountable to implementing their checklists does it wore you out? Do you jump into that? Are you afraid of it? How do you deal with it my friend?

Dr. Zoellner: At first you did, but then after a while you learn to embrace it and you know that every great farmer, every great rancher, every great vineyard owner knows that when you see that plant you go in and you cut some the limbs off, if you prune it, it seems mean. Cutting the living stuff off of it. But the next year you have a such an increase of your harvest that you go, you know what, that was the right thing to do.

Clay: Thrivers, stay tune, Thrive Time Show.

Speaker 1: Are you a business owner? You need to ask yourself right now, how are you backing up your files and important documents? Most businesses have no system for the files in their business. If this is you, you got to use Dropbox at least sign up for one of their 30-day free trials. Real talk, it’s the secure file sharing and storage solution that employees and IT administrators trust. You get as much space as needed at no additional cost. You get unlimited file recovery and versioning, basically creating new versions and valuable admin controls for secure sharing and collaboration with Dropbox for Business. You got to check this out. After using Dropbox you’ll definitely feel more secure knowing that a virus or power surge can’t ruin your computer and your entire business. Try full access to Dropbox Business for 30 days. Head over to Dropbox.com to get started, again, Dropbox.com to get started.

Voice over: You’re listening to the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170.

Clay: All right, Thrive nation welcome back to the Thrive Time Show during your drive time home. Where we’re going to give you more knowledge bombs per capita that you’re going to find on any other business radio show. I got to get more bombs now. I got to clean my bomb a little bit there’s– I got to get more. Here, hear me go. There it is.

Dr. Zoellner: There that’s more bomb.

Clay: That’s a knowledge bomb. My name is Clay Clark, I’m a former SBA entrepreneur of the year in your ear and I’m joined here with Dr. Robert Zoellner, a guy who really– Z, you have more knowledge bombs per capita than almost any other man I’ve ever been around.

Dr. Zoellner: [laughs] I know that’s why you creep on me that’s before creeping was acceptable. Now, it’s like Bookface, Myspace all those things you do. All those things you kids use these days.

Clay: Let me explain this real fast. Now, if you think a lady is attractive and you’re trying to learn more about her. You want to date her. You’re trying to– some people go into Facebook and they’ll friend her. People friend almost anybody now who– it’s almost like if 10 people– if you share 10 acquaintances almost anyone accepts the friend request on Facebook. Now, you’re trolling out you’re looking at her family photos– “Her mom seems like a nice lady.” She’ll probably become like your mom. Maybe, that’s a move. That’s the acceptable creepage that’s now happening. Back in the day. Before it was acceptable, Z, I was doing some serious creepage in your optometry clinic and it was not socially acceptable.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes, [laughs] your lovely wife worked there and you would show up to pick her up. You would show up and then finally got you came earlier and early. You’ll be hanging around more and more and you’d be snooping around and then you started– then you did the move. Hey, can we do lunch sometime? I’m like, “Yes, sure whatever.” And, then of course it was like, hey, can we do — remember we talked about doing that lunch and then pretty soon you wore me down. You warn up, probably like you did Vanessa, your wife, that’s how you got her.

Clay: That’s how I got her. When you’re a two like me and you score a 10 like her, you got to do the wear down method.

Dr. Zoellner: You got to do the wear down method. Then we did lunch and then we started a little mentoring and it’s been fun. I’ll tell you what it’s been great having you in my life and I’m just so proud of you and the successes that you’ve had and now look at you. Now look at you, now you’re a big deal.

Clay: Here’s the deal Thrivers, if you’re listening right now and you want to build your business and take it to the next level you’ve got to get detailed, you get specific in the background on Facebook Live you can see the makings of a very detailed workflow that we’re building right now and soon we’re going to be turning this into a Photoshop document on Monday called “The One Sheet” that will then be a usable document by our team. It will be a laminated usable document and it starts off here. But, coach, I want to ask you. Over the years as you’ve grown Score Basketball, talk to me about a checklist that you’ve implemented that really has helped you and taking some of the stress out of your brain.

Coach Calvert: Probably a good one is with the receptionist. I used to stress over what I wasn’t getting done what I might forget and since I’ve done my checklist I don’t worry about that thing anymore. With our receptionist for instance she’s much more than a receptionist. She checks the mail. She makes sure all the phone calls she makes is done. She makes sure the scheduling is up-to-date. Who’s showing up? Who has a page? She’s got a big huge checklist that she gets done every time.

Clay: You literally will have hundreds of people for the Christmas camp you have every year signing up.

Coach Calvert: Yes.

Clay: She has to answer the phone.

Coach Calvert: It gets very complicated if you don’t have somebody that’s there taking care of every little thing.

Clay: Pretty one who’s listening right now and they say, “My kid, his skills in basketball need to be improved. My daughter’s got a week left hand. My son can’t get to the hoop quick enough. He can’t shoot off the dribble. He doesn’t do well with the jump shot. We need help with the different basketball ball handling skills.” How can they find out more about you? How can they get into this legendary Christmas basketball camp?

Coach Calvert: You can go to scorebball.com. Easy to find and all your questions will be answered on there. You can call that number which is 9189557160 and you can find all about the camp.

Clay: Now, Thrivers, Coach Calvert will never oversell himself he’s probably the most America’s most humble humans. I will tell you this though. I know of dozens and dozens of kids out there throughout Tulsa who went to scorebball.com. They went on the website and they discovered, “Wow, this guy has coached countless players who’ve gone on to play division one sports” and by the way, that’s not normal. The players come back and say, “The training I received at Score Basketball is what allowed me to play at the next level. It allowed me to practice and get my skills to that next level.” I’m just telling you scorebball.com it will change the skill development of your players significantly. You don’t want to miss out on the Christmas camp. Check it out.

Now step number four, fix your connection points by focusing on execution not motivation. Z, this is something I’m going to give you a notable quotable and I’m expecting you to unleash a canon of knowledge. Here we go two notable quotables. One, this comes from Harvard, okay? This comes from James Hesketh with the Service Profit Chain book from Harvard Business School. He says, “Being nice to people is 20% of providing good customer service. The important part is designing systems that allow you to do the job right the first time. All the smiles in the world aren’t going to help you if your product or service is not what the customer wants.” Z, why do you have to get serious about making checklist and quit having motivational meetings with your staff. Eventually you got to focus on them getting stuff done, why?

Dr. Zoellner: Well, because you want to get stuff done. You want to provide the service or the thing that makes you the money. You see that’s what we’re all about here and if you don’t do it right, then you have to deal with the consequences of that and that is– Clay, I read something the other day that really troubled and guess what percentage of businesses start and then they fail?

Clay: We’ll start ups, I believe according to Forbes this just in, nine out of 10, startups are going to fail according to Forbes. I believe.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes, it was– the one I read was 80 %.

Clay: That’s not good. That’s eight.

Dr. Zoellner: That’s eight, eight. I would call you a liar for one, by the way, and that’s our goal on the show. Say, hey, listen folks we know you have a passion, just like Coach here had a passion for basketball and you said it beautifully in the segment before this he said, “You know what? I was really good at teaching basketball. I wasn’t good at running a business.” We’re here to be your business coach. You tune in to the Thrive Time Show. You sign up on thrive15.com and guess what we’re going to help coach you up.

Clay: It works and I’m going to tell you this, Thrivers, this is another notable quotable for you. This is from Atul Gawande he says, “The volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly.” He’s got more to say and, Thrivers, if you want to make this Thanksgiving, you know, potentially the best Thanksgiving of your life because they’re so thankful about these new systems that you’ve learned to start and grow our business, you want to stay tuned. Thrive time show on your Thrive time home, Super Tuesday.

Speaker 1: For the professional looking man out there, this is for you. Are you tired of waiting for hours in disorganized barbershops around town? Are you maybe looking for an upscale haircut experience instead of being treated like a little kid? If either of these thoughts crossed your mind, then Elephant in the room men’s grooming lounge is for you.

The Elephant in the room men’s grooming lounge is proud to offer a variety of packages and memberships for discerning men and regular customers who wish to maintain their tailored look while receiving discounts offer of services and products. They’re going to bring you in, they’ll offer you a beverage, identify your style that you’re going for, get you a tailored haircut from one of the professional stylists, wash your hair and then style it afterwards so you could even go back to work.

The experience is awesome. They even do cool things for members like a free nape shave on Mondays or a peppermint oil scalp massage on Tuesday. Check out one of the locations near you and book an appointment. You can check them out at eitrlounge.com or just dial 9188772219. Seriously, you’re going to love it. 9188772219 or visit eitrlounge.com to book an appointment today.

Voice-over:You’re listening to the Thrive time show on Talk Radio 1170.

Clark: Alright Thrive nation. Welcome back to your inspiration stations, the Thrive time show during your drive time home. I am a business coach and my name is Clay Clark, I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the year, and you are listening to Tulsa’s only local business radio show. It’s the Thrive time show. It’s the business school without the BS, and yes, you’re in for a treat. You are joined here with Doctor Robert Zoellner. Dr. Z, how are you, sir?

Dr. Zoellner: I’m fantastic on this Tuesday. The only problem is like it’s a Wednesday. We don’t have two hours, we only have one hour.

Clark: We’ve got to go 90 miles an hour.

Dr. Zoellner: We are going to pack it and stuff it to one hour.

Clark: We are going to just squeeze it in there. We brought in a guy who’s a very successful Tulsa entrepreneur. Coach Calvert is on the program today. We’ve got a lot to get into, but I want to recap what we already went over before we get into the next step. We’re talking about the six steps to mastering the high art of management follow-up. Basically, it’s how do you get your people on your team to do what they’re supposed to do. Step number one, get to embrace the quality and quantity are not enemies. A lot of the people on your team-

Dr. Zoellner: I love that.

Clark: -will say, “We don’t want to grow it bigger cause its hard for us to remember to clean the bathrooms.” That’s dumb, okay. Step number two, turn your entire system into a visual workflow. If you’re watching on Facebook live right now, you can see the visual workflow. It is a specific linear, step-by-step system. You got to put it on a whiteboard. It’s a time-consuming. I did it this week for our Thrive 15 conferences. People are coming up for workshops. Hundreds of people were coming out, and we need to make a process for it because otherwise, it’s going to get awkward when many people come here, and there’s not enough sitting capacity.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes. Yes.

Clark: Yes seriously. We have more seating capacity. We’re putting in more lighting Z. We’re doing a lot of changes to make it to accommodate all the new people.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes.

Clark: Step number three, You’ve to have got a checklist for everything. You have to build a checklist for everything. For someone who needs to hear it again, you pick, pick, need to build a checklist for everything. Step number four, fix your connection points by focusing on execution, not motivation. Connection points are where Billy is supposed to do step one, and Bobby is supposed to do step two. In our videography company, we used to have epic photos back in the day. Someone has to shoot the video footage of the wedding but then someone else has to edit and then someone else has to mail it to the bride and groom.

That’s three connection points. Z, if you’re not careful, you can end up having over and over and over meetings, the same meeting repetitively. Over and over always focused on motivation, but you’re not having any specific improvement. Z, why is it so dangerous for entrepreneurs to say busy, feeling like they’re getting traction or feeling like they’re having success when they’re really just having endless motivational meetings about the same topic and not seeing any improvement at all?

Voice-over: Oh, Billy.

Dr. Zoellner: That’s what happens, you’re like, “Oh, Billy.” You could do it, you could do it Billy, said look at your corner. I want to do it.

Clay: You want to do it?

Dr. Zoellner: I want to do it, I want it, I want to do it boss, I want to do boss. Then they don’t follow and would say, “But I don’t know how, how to do.” You have to focus on the checklist. You’ve to focus on the execution. You have to focus on the Gator band.

Clark: That sounds boring.

Dr. Zoellner: Just like what you said earlier, you don’t just like that notable quotable was earlier. Being pleasant and nice to their– yes. It’s also necessary. But just being nice and not knowing what to do, that’s just frustration.

Clark: Atul Gawande, this is a guy who is the author of Checklist Manifesto. A surgeon and by the way a professor at the Harvard Medical School. He studied surgeons. In his book, if you read, it’ll blow your mind. He studied surgeons who didn’t use a checklist. This is really scary statistics if you get a chance to read his book. They found that in almost a third of the cases of patients infection caused– when a patient goes in for surgery, and there’s an infection that causes death or serious illness, it’s caused by somebody not using a checklist AKA “skipping a step”.

He said passionately in his book, “The volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely or reliably. Good checklists, on the other hand, are precise. They are efficient to the point and easy to use even the most difficult situations. They do not try to spell out everything. A checklist cannot fly a plane, instead they provide reminders of only the most critical and important steps. The ones that even the most highly skilled professionals could miss. Good checklist are above all practical.” Step number five, every time there’s a problem ask yourself if it’s a system problems Z or a human problem. Why do you have to do that Z?

Dr. Zoellner: Well, because here’s the difference. If it’s a system problem, you need to change the system. You need to change your steps. You’ve got your checklist wrong. You need to improve upon the system that you have in place that you’re handing to your employees and paying them to do, okay. Now if the system is correct and you just have a guy they’re doing jackassery, then do you have a different situation. You’ve got to fix that person, coach them up, motivate them, or you know what? Fire them.

Clark: Z, I have very negative story I going to share with you on the super abbreviated Tuesday. We got to go fast.

Dr. Zoellner: Okay.

Clark: Here we go. On April 20th, 2010, the massive “Deepwater Horizon oil spill” began. After the Deepwater Horizon oil rig sank to the ocean’s floor, the oil continued to flow under the earth into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days, 87 days. Later November of 2010, the United States settled criminal charges against BP because British Petroleum agreed to pay them $4.5 billion in fines.

Now this just in here is the notable quotable from the CEO, “Tell me how this feels to you as a consumer. A person who is an American citizen who likes to enjoy a clean Gulf of Mexico”, tell me how you hear how you– what is– how this, how you’d to his quote? He says, “The first thing to say is I’m sorry. We’re sorry for the massive disruption that caused their lives. There’s no one who wants this moreover more than I do. I would like my life back.” Tony Hayward, the former CEO of British Petroleum. As a consumer or as an American citizen, when you hear that your coastline was destroyed due to somebody not following systems, are you sympathetic? Do you forgive him easily? Are people still mad that oil spill for 87 days Z?

Dr. Zoellner: They’re still mad. It’s an unfortunate thing. He’s the boss. He did the right thing. He stepped up and guess what, he took ownership of it. That’s what you have to do as the boss. When your employees doesn’t follow the checklist, when your employees just has a bad day and kind being an idiot, guess what you get to absorb all the negativity of that so.

Clark: I absolutely, am a big fan of BP. I have got a lot of case studies about some great things they do. I’m just telling you this, the customers is the boss, and they’re not going to be forgiving when someone skipped a step. It’s all about execution.

Dr. Zoellner: It is.

Clark: Bottom line is in the owner. You have to own up when things don’t get done. Now step number six, you must replace or fix the biggest limiting factors. Now Lee Cockerell, the former executive vice president of Walt Disney World is one of our thrive15.com mentors. He says, “When you do hard things, life gets easier.” Coach Calvert, I want to ask you this, as you’ve grown your basketball facility to the point where you’re no longer the one who coaches every kid.

Coach Calvert: Yes.

Clay: How hard is it for you to move on when people don’t want to do their job? How hard has it been for you to learn that idea?

Coach Calvert: I had to do one of the most impossible thing is. With all my booking and everything, I had my wife doing it. It is the dumbest mistake I ever made.

Clark: Really?

Coach Calvert: She should not have been doing that. She’s very creative, she does all these great things, but she was the wrong person. I had to let her go, and it was my fault. That was the hardest one.

Clark: Is he a tyrant there? Z, have you heard this before?

Dr. Zoellner: That’s your wife.

Coach Calvert: Then I had let the nicest lady. She was so nice, and she was young married, and but she stopped doing her job, and she was complaining to the people. I really liked her, but I had to let her go.

Clark: Wow. I wanted to say this, if you’re listening right now. A lot of business owners almost everyone listening right now. Either your wife works with you, or your husband works with you. Because when you start a small business, you’re working at your garage, your brother is helping you, your cousin’s helping you, someone’s helping you. I want to tell you one of the cruelest things that you can do unintentionally is to keep somebody in a situation where they’re not being successful, just because they’re your spouse, your neighbor, your cousin, whatever. Z, also you have to look at your biggest limiting membrane, your biggest limiting factor and you have to move on, don’t you?

Dr. Zoellner: You have to. I mean, you have to take a hard look at that and it’s the toughest thing to do, coach you’re right. I mean, especially when it’s someone you care about, something that’s in your life, someone that has access to you, someone like family member, perfect example. You’re like, “You know what, you don’t really have the skills and you owned it”, and you said, “You know what, ultimately it was my fault because-

Coach Calvert: Course–

Dr. Zoellner: -I knew her and you put her in a place where she needed precision, she needed accounting. She needed a different skill set. She’s over here, creative and over here doing this stuff really well”, but, you know, the detailed stuff was not her thing. You gave her to do it and so she probably was happier once that all transparent she got out of her.

Coach Calvert: Totally relieved.

Dr. Zoellner: Totally relieved, yes.

Coach Calvert: Totally changed everything.

Clay: Now Thrivers, If you’re listening right now, you’re saying to yourself, you’re going, “You know what, I am not content with what I am right now. I really, really want to improve my business this year. I’m just tired of every year my business being capped, either my personal production or some limit” because I’m just going to tell you this. I am a believer in Jesus Christ and I don’t believe that God has put some limitation saying, “Such and such dry cleaning is now capped at 2.3 million per year because that is what I want to do.”

No it’s not a supernatural force, it’s just you either can’t scale because the law of the lid is you’re being limited. You have a lid on your business because you don’t have systems, you don’t have scalable processes. There’s something that you don’t know how to do that’s keeping you from growing. Z and I have two solutions for you. One, you can come to out to thrive15.com in person workshop at the 20,000 square foot thrive15.com world headquarters in Jenks, America and work with a business coach. How do you get involved, you go to thrivetimeshow.com, and there you will find how to book a ticket to the in-person interactive thrive15 workshops and Z, we’ve made it affordable for everybody. They can go to the thrive15.com website to watch a thousands of videos there Dr. Z.

Dr. Zoellner: I’m going to call another. It’s a Netflix of a business coach business coaching.

Clay: A Netflix of business coaching.

Dr. Zoellner: That’s right. From $19 a month, you can get it swipe your credit card, boom, boom, boom, and now you can watch thousands of videos. You step all night long and watch videos categorized by management, time management, raising capital. Let me know.

Clay: PR, marketing sales.

Dr. Zoellner: Everything you need to know to start to grow a business.

Clay: Z, it’s a Thrive time show on your drive time home. Three, two, one, boom.

[00:42:32] [END OF AUDIO]