Business Coach | How to Differentiate Your Business in the Marketplace

Audio Transcription

During this exciting episode of the Thrive Time Show, America’s number one business coach Clay Clark and business tycoon Dr. Robert Zoellner are here to tell you how differentiate your business from the rest of the competition.  Learn how to stand out in a crowded market with the king of SEO and marketing and 2 time published author, Mr. Jonathan Kelly.

Podcast Transcript

Announcer: 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 optometrist and entrepreneur, Dr. Robert Zoellner and the former Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year in your ear, Clay Clark. It’s the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170. Three, two, one. Boom.

Clay Clark: It is a Thursday and we want to get into it in the worst way and I am joined here with your sensei, the doctor of business. It’s Dr. Robert Zoellner. Sir, how are you?

Dr. Robert Zoellner: Ooh, you snatched pepper from my hand young grasshopper.

Clay: The circle, the circle.

Dr. Zoellner: The circle continued on down. Hey, it’s still Happy New Year. It’s the first week of the new year and I’m so excited. Do you know why?

Clay: Why?

Dr. Zoellner: Because somebody listening out there is going to put into action all these stuff we’re telling them on the radio or on the thrivetimeshow.com podcast, right? Then just going to put it into action and they’re going to get some satisfaction because they’re going to start thrive actioning.

Clay: Yes, Dr. Z. I will tell you, not only are we inventing words today, we’re helping people start businesses. I have three drop-the-mic moments that have just happened. Three.

Dr. Zoellner: Okay. Well, you’ve got three mics then?

Clay: We’ve got four mics. We have some great guests here. We have Jonathan Kelly, our search engine and advertising expert on the show and we have Mr. Will Rohleder there with his incredible company, 24/7 Disaster Group. He’s in the house. How are you, sir?

Will Rohleder: I’m doing great. Thanks for having me, Clay.

Clay: Now here is the drop-the-mic moments we have here this week.

Dr. Zoellner: Okay. All right, here we go.

Clay: We’ve got one guy down in Dallas. He’s a drone pilot. Thomas, if you’re listening how are you doing buddy? This guy is now doing consistently about $2,000 to $2,500 a week of business. He flies all the flights and it’s the winter, if you’re new to this country. It’s the winter right now. If you’re new to this climate.

Dr. Zoellner: [laughs] To the Northern hemisphere.

Clay: Yes. That means if he’s doing real estate drone videos and he’s doing that much in the winter, when he gets into the spring it’s going to be 10 times as busy. He’s ready to do this thing full time, it’s exciting. We have another guy, Mackeilow, he’s here from New York. He flew in this week. He’s going to be here all week. His business is booming out there in New York.

Dr. Zoellner: I can’t hardly wait to see him. I haven’t seen him in a while.

Clay: Upper state New York. [unintelligible 00:02:26] is picking him up at the airport, I believe. We have one more thriver. I talked to him today, it’s a property management inc. He was one of our guests on our show and Sean’s business is blowing up. He’s just blowing up and it’s all stuff learning [crosstalk] right here.

Dr. Zoellner: I hope in a good way because we have a disaster relief guy here. I hope it’s not blowing up. We need to send Will over to his place right now.

Clay: Okay. Speaking of blowing up in a not-good way, Z,because that’s why we have these two special guests here today. This is the time of the year, guys, where you have to keep your water dripping when you leave the house. This is a tip.

Dr. Zoellner: [laughs]

Clay: Z, [laughs] it is not the home and garden show but —

Dr. Zoellner: It’s not? Because I was wondering where to plant my tulips. Is it time yet? Does anybody know? Is this not the –?

Clay: In the commercial break, I really want to know more about your daisy strategy. But no, seriously, Jon, can you explain what your — This is Jonathan Kelly, he’s our in-house thrive15 and Make Your Life Epic advertising search engine optimization expert. If you fill out a form at [email protected], he heads up the team of people that advise you how to optimize your website. Jon, can you explain what is going on right now at the Kelly house?

Jonathan Kelly: Yes, it’s a fun thing. I bought a house, first house.

Clay: First house but the [crosstalk].

Dr. Zoellner: Congratulations. Welcome to home ownership.

Jonathan: Thank you. You would think that. So I bought a house, the day before Christmas. The [crosstalk].

Dr. Zoellner: Oh, it’s a Christmas miracle [laughs].

Jonathan: It’s the eve of Christmas eve, moved into said house and super excited about it. Me and my wife move in [unintelligible 00:03:58].

Clay: It’s certain [crosstalk].

Dr. Zoellner: It’s a beautiful image.

Jonathan: [crosstalk] such a nice time.

Dr. Zoellner: You put up a tree?

Jonathan: We did not put up a tree or a cree.

[laughter]

Clay: No crees.

Jonathan: But what we did do is we moved in, we got all settled.

Clay: Here we go, this is exciting.

Jonathan: We’re about three days into it and we find out that our pipes or actually our sewer line is collapsed.

Will: Disaster [laughs].

Clay: Now real quick, this hints that we — we have the expert here, this is 24/7 Disaster Group. Should you find yourself in a neighborhood and it don’t look good, who are you going to call? You’re going to call 24/7 Disaster Group.

Dr. Zoellner: What we said, since it’s just been a week or so since he’s passed, whenever we can get Careless Whisper in the show.

Clay: Oh, wow.

Dr. Zoellner: So JK, you’re home. You just moved into your new home.

Clay: You’re hitting on your wife.

Dr. Zoellner: You got your you and your lovely Mrs. You don’t have up your tree but you’ve got a lot of holiday spirit in the house. You’re sitting there and you’re thinking, “Oh, what’s that noise in the background? Is that Careless Whisper?”

Clay: Is that old Saint Nick?

Dr. Zoellner: Or is that the pipes broken and water is running to the house?

Jonathan: It’s even better than that though. It’s like Careless Whisper, when you put it on, you’re on a little bare skin rug, probably. You want to put it on a fire place, right? You’re just trying to heat up.

Clay: You’re going to want to try to heat up, yes.

Jonathan: Literally and figuratively.

Will: Heat’s good. Yes.

Clay: You would want to turn the heat up.

Dr. Zoellner: Oh yes, heat’s good.

Clay: Yes, that makes sense.

Jonathan: We’re trying to turn the heat up and listen to Careless Whisper and the heat doesn’t work.

Stinger: Holy cow.

Clay: That came in hot.

Dr. Zoellner: We got buttons working today, folks.

Jonathan: Just a recap.

Clay: [laughs] Recap. You move in on the eve of Christmas.

Jonathan: Eve of Christmas eve.

Clay: Okay, nice. Festivus.

Jonathan: Yes, Festivus. Find out that our sewer lines are collapsed and ONG, God bless him.

Clay: OMG? O-M-G ?

Dr. Zoellner: No. N, I think.

Jonathan: N. N.

Dr. Zoellner: Oklahoma Natural Gas.

Clay: Okay.

Jonathan: I actually had to shut off the gas because it was leaking. It was very hot [crosstalk].

Clay: You got two options.

Will: So you wouldn’t have hot water either.

Jonathan: Luckily, we have — we didn’t have water but if we were to have water, our water heater was electric and that worked.

Clay: If you’re listening right now and you’re having your pipes explode, you’re having fires, you’re having water damage, what you got to do is you got to either get scared, get worried and climb under a bed or you have to pick up the phone and call Will Rohleder. Will, what should somebody do if this predicament is hitting them this season? Because we have the freezing weather happening, snow, these kind of things. It’s the wintery weather time of the year. What should they do if they find themselves in these kind of scenarios?

Will: Call 24/7 Disaster Group, any kind of frozen pipe, any sewage back up, if your furnace isn’t working, we can usually find out why, send the right people to get that fixed. Call us 918-779-4900.

Clay: Again, what’s that number, one more time. I was trying to eat some Oklahoma Joe’s and I got distracted. I was trying to do the burnt ends and the beans combo in my mouth at the same time. I’m sorry, I missed that phone number.

Will: [laughs] That is 918-779-4900. 24/7 Disaster Group.

Clay: Now Z, back to the business doctor here. I want to ask you this.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes, sure.

Clay: If you’re business owner and you’re coming to work — we’re going to get into today’s topic which is how to differentiate your business in a crowded marketplace. We’re going to get into that but before we do — this is the real talk. This is the stuff that happens behind the stuff. If you’re a business owner, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to be free of disasters at home.

Announcer: You’re listening the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170.

Clay: Hypothetically, let’s say that you’re a marketing expert responsible for helping thousands of people all over the world optimize their websites and your name is John Kelly. Throughout your career, how have you handled the personal stress of situations such as these and then also be able to do the whole, get to work and be successful at the office? Because some people have meltdowns and when their personal live melts down, their business melts down.

Dr. Zoellner: Well, here’s what I do. This is my move. It may not be the move for everybody but what I do is I find, in this case, a dry corner of the house and I go over there and I get in a fetal position and I just suck my thumb and cry, and then it all gets better.

Clay: That sounds encouraging [laughs].

Dr. Zoellner: No. What you do is, first of all, once the shock of it is worn of, you’re like, “This did not happen.” You’re just like, “It’s just a shock and all hit.” Then you take a deep breath and you just break it down like you do a boss. What a boss does is you make big-

Clay: Obstacles.

Dr. Zoellner: – seem-

Clay: – small.

Dr. Zoellner: I like it when you finish my sentences. That’s what you have to do. It’s a big obstacle and you have to make it seem small. How do you do that? Well, what’s step one? In this case, step one is calling Will.

Clay: You got to call Will.

Dr. Zoellner: You got to call Will right now. Then what you do is you bite it up in a bite-size steps. You do step one, step two, step three, step four and you just approach it like you do any big obstacle in you life.

Clay: Getting a little deeper. Let’s say, not for Jon’s scenerios, let’s just say there’s other scenarios. Let’s say you’re an entrepreneur and you’ve got a personal issue going on but it’s going to require litigation, like an ongoing conversation. You can’t close the loop for several weeks. How do you deal with those situations my friend?

Dr. Zoellner: Same thing, fetal position, sucking thumb, just balling. You cry like — you get Kleenex, facial tissue I should say. No. Here again, it’s a big obstacle. It’s overwhelming if you think about the whole thing. So you just break it down into steps. What’s step one? Step one is get in a — in that scenario, get an attorney. Step two is to meet with him. Step three is to get all your paperwork together. Step four is to listen to what he’s going to tell you. Step five is to do what he’s going to tell you. Step six is then to try to forget about it, impossible but try. Step six is to stay busy and just get through your life. That’s why one of my number one rules or not one of my number one.

Clay: One of your top 10 rules.

Dr. Zoellner: One of my top 10 rules in business, I refer to as show time. There’s a time you got to clean up that pig and go win your blue ribbon and what that means is that, hey you got to knock the dirt off. You got to scrub it up, you got to present yourself a certain way. You can’t sit there with your next client, your next big sales person and go, “I’m being sued. I can’t [unintelligible 00:10:06].”

Clay: Oh, Billy. Hold me, Billy. It’s weird if people walk in and you’re holding Billy and —

Dr. Zoellner: I’m just crying. I’m like, “I would like to do search engine optimization for you to help you with your marketing campaign and brainstorm some great ideas but I can’t.” You got to do showtime. You got to shrug all that off and you got to say what’s the most important thing right now in my life?

Clay: Now Will, I want to ask you this because you’ve seen some pipes are exploding all around Tulsa. The weather is dipping down crazy cold today. It’s getting colder, getting colder, getting colder. Walk me through. I mean, has this happened a few times already this season for you where you’ve dealt with people with water damages? Is this something that’s happened to you this year?

Will: Yes, the week of Christmas, we were literally working around the clock 24 hours a day. When the temperature hits about zero, all the pipes start to freeze. Everyone calls because they have no water, but the worst has not happened. Usually, when the thaw, when it hits about 40 degrees, that’s when the pipes are going to start letting loose in the house or in the business.

Clay: A problem for somebody is a business for you. Are you actually happy about this? Is that your deal? Are you excited when pipes burst? You’re like, “Yes. Yes.” Are you giving people reverse tips?

Will: We do get excited, but we —

[laughter]

Clay: I love your honesty, Will.

Will: We do. We’re excited because we really enjoy drying out buildings. It’s fun. It’s kind of a science and some skill.

Clay: Okay. Now thrivers, today we’re talking about how to differentiate your business in the marketplace. We’re going to be picking John’s brain on this a little bit here. But Z —

Dr. Zoellner: Wait. Time out, time out, time out, time out. We just kind of skipped over something right there.

Clay: Yes, what did we skip on?

Dr. Zoellner: Dry out a building. You just get the water from going. I mean, what do you do? You got to put heaters in there? What —

Will: Yes, we’re going to come in if there’s no heat.

Dr. Zoellner: Walk me through that.

Will: Okay. If there’s no heat, we want to control its psychrometry so we want to control —

Clay: Psychrometry?

Will: That’s right.

Dr. Zoellner: Whoa, man. It’s a big word.

Clay: Did you study that in NSU?

Dr. Zoellner: That’s a big word.

Jonathan: That was my nickname in high school.

Dr. Zoellner: I think I was sick that day. I don’t know. I think I missed that.

Will: We’re going to come in and we’re going to extract any water that’s standing, anything that’s visible. Then, we’re going to apply heat. We’re going to bring in dehumidifiers. We’re going to control the entire environment with air, heat and dehumidification in order to dry out the structure.

Dr. Zoellner: How quickly do you have to do that to keep the black mole from infecting my — to give me black lung disease?

Will: Any time you have a water leak, you want to get on it immediately because it can create microbial problems. When it’s cold out, you wait a few days, you’re probably okay. In Oklahoma, when hot summer and humidity, mold can happen almost immediately.

Clay: I don’t know what it is. Whenever I hear the word microbial, whenever I hear that word, I hear this song.

[music]

It sounds like a party. You’re having a party there helping dry out homes all over this great city.

Will: Yes. [unintelligible 00:12:48].

Clay: Now, Will —

Dr. Zoellner: Microbi-up.

Clay: Give me that phone number one more time in case I’ve been — I’ve been at Oklahoma Joe’s. I’ve just been enjoying my lunch. I mean honestly, I tried to listen to what you’re saying but I had to run in there get my burnt ins, get my big beans. What’s that phone number one more time?

Will: 918-779-4900.

Clay: Now, when we come back Thrivers, we’re going to be talking about a subject that Dr. Z is super pumped to talk about. I’m going to tell you why. Because there are many — I was checking on the phone book and I’m the last guy in Oklahoma who has a phone book, but I’m looking in the phone book and I noticed there’s more than two optometrists. There’s more than three. There’s more than four. There’s more than five. There’s actually dozens.

Dr. Zoellner: Oh my.

Clay: Yet people seem to know your name. I was thinking about it. Well, it’s probably just luck. It’s probably just good genes.

Dr. Zoellner: Well, it’s just kind of some random stuff. They start to end and they walk forward nowadays.

Clay: What’s the economy the way it work? The economy was an optic when you were starting out and it’s just — then, very political.

Dr Zoellner: Very political.

Clay: There’s nothing you could do to control that.

Dr. Zoellner: Wait, that’s a different show. This isn’t a political — Is this a political show?

Clay: We’re going to teach you how to differentiate your business in the marketplace, how to standout, how to become that purple cow in your marketplace. Thrive Time Show. Stay tuned.

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Announcer: Live, local, now, you’re listening to the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170.

Clay: All right Tulsa, Oklahomies and people of importance, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. This is your audio dojo of mojo, where everyday we teach you how to start and grow a business full show. We’re broadcasting on the left coast from the left coast of the Arkansas River inside the Box that Rocks. Deep within the Thrive15.com world headquarters and to my right, if you’re on Facebook live, to my left we have Dr. Robert Zoellner in the house today. Sir, how are you?

Dr. Zoellner: I am fantastic. Happy New Year Thrive Nation out there. We’ve got a goal this year. We are going to eradicate business failure.

Clay: True.

Dr. Zoellner: Forbes says 80% of all businesses start at fail, and that is a number that’s sticking in my craw. I mean, it’s in my craw. I want it out of my craw.

Clay: We have three people that we’ve talked about in the first segment that we know that now have our starting successful companies as a result of their diligence combined with knowing what to do.

Dr. Zoellner: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Time out, time out, time out. Are you suggesting, are you suggesting while I’m sitting here eating my egg salad sandwich enjoying my beverage of choice, thinking about the baked beans I missed on at Oklahoma Joe’s, as I’m sitting there doing that, are you telling me I actually have to take actions? I can’t just listen and just absorb the knowledge and then just let it just percolate out of me?

Clay: I’ve got a new phrase that I’m starting to say a lot and starting to get this. I’m starting to kind of work through it mentally here. Is that the path to success you and I teach people, the 13-point proven system, it is simple but it requires diligence. Diligence is that steady application of effort. We have a guy on the show who started out working in our search engine team, and grinding away. I mean literally — I’ll let him tell the story, but he’s literally grinding a way. It’s not in the coal mine but it’s kind of worse because you had a small room and you’re typing.

We have Jonathan Kelly on the show today. Jon, how are you doing man?

Jonathan: Listen, if I were doing any better, vitamins will be taking me.

Clay: Oh no. I want to ask you this Jon now, can you explain to the Thrivers out there, we’re talking about diligence here as we transition into this concept of how to stand out in the marketplace? What time did you get to work everyday to stand out in the office? Because a lot of people work for somebody else right and they want to stand out in the office. What time did you get to work everyday for a long time before you’re convinced that I knew your name?

Jonathan: I’m still not convinced that you know my name, but —

Dr. Zoellner: Billy, we do too. Stop it.

Jonathan: Yes, you stop it. Three AM was what I was averaging. I get here everyday 3 AM and start grinding out.

Dr. Zoellner: Well, I get here by three all right, but 3 PM. I mean I got to get my lunch in. I got to — I get up every morning. I got to get up every morning.

Clay: Why did you start getting that early? What was going on on your head?

Jonathan: One, I wanted to be part of this company and so I was working two other jobs. I had to get here to knock it out and then go on to my other ones. Then after the fact is something that was really important to me was showing up and getting my stuff done and making sure that I still had enough time for my wife at the end of the day.

Clay: Let me ask you this. If someone’s listening right now, maybe they all entrepreneur, but Z, they want to start a business.

Dr. Zoellner: Sure.

Clay: They’ve got motivated. They’re excited. They’ll ask you. They made the 2016 resolution. They put it on the goal sheet and they said, “I’m going to learn how to start a successful company this year.” Maybe they form the LLC, Z, and then they sort of ran out of — maybe they form the LLC. Maybe they even looked at getting a small business loan. They even got a logo made and then they just ran out of gas. Z, what encouragement would you have for somebody to help them — encourage them to stay diligent or to become more diligent?

Dr. Zoellner: Well, I’ll tell you what, we’re going to help you fill up your gas of your car i.e. your business idea. There’s a great way to start off 2017. Just because people have just begged us to do it, we are now starting to do this with great success. They’re called In-person Workshop. What does that mean? That means you actually physically come to the Thrive15 headquarters. This beautiful facility we have here on the left coast of the Arkansas River.

It’s going to be January 20th and the 21st. We are going to sit there face-to-face and teach you and coach you up and encourage you and lift you up and let you know you can get it done and then tell you how to get it done on starting and growing that business.

Clay: I’ll tell you what, you’re going to get specific and practical training on time management, marketing, sales. Let’s get into marketing. How do you differentiate your business in the marketplace?

Dr. Zoellner: Well wait, if I want to know more about it, where do I go?

Clay: Here’s what —

Dr. Zoellner: You’re teasing me right now.

Clay: Here’s what you do, you got to go to thrivetimeshow.com.

Dr. Zoellner: Okay. Thrivetimeshow.com. All right.

Clay: When you get there, you’re going to find on the website that there’s a little button you can click called conferences.

Dr. Zoellner: All right I’m clicking, click.

Clay: When you click conferences, you’re going to find the itinerary and you got to reserve your seat, you got to reserve spot, because we don’t make this where there’s thousands of people. We’re not renting out a hotel somewhere and then trying to upsell you a bunch of stuff in the back of the room. What we’re doing is we’re bringing the end of our home, it’s like the home court advantage into the thrive15.com world headquarters and we are teaching you are proven 13-point system so that you can learn what to do and know how to apply it within your own business, Dr. Z, that’s the plan.

Announcer: You’re listening to Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170.

Dr. Zoellner: Well listen, part of the reason I’m not starting my business right now is can’t — I mean the money situation. This in-person workshop costs money. What if I can’t stroke that check? What do I do then? I just sit there and go, “Man, I wish I could,” or I could maybe peek in the windows, come around to the side over here where the river is and look in the windows. I mean can I do that?

Clay: Well, we made 2 promises to listeners here a few months ago and we’re going to get stand behind that. One, no matter how much money you have, if you have seven dollars in your pocket right now, you can afford to get out to one of these. Then when you get here, we’re not going to upsell you. Because of our scholarship program, literally if you can’t afford the price of the ticket, don’t stress out. We’re not going to talk about it, publicize it. We’re just going to help you out.

The whole goal is to help you learn what you need to know to be successful. But as Maya Angelou said, the famous poet, she said that, “Nothing works unless you do.” So you’re going to have to take some action.

Dr. Zoellner: There you go.

Clay: You’re going to have to get here, someone needs to mark their calendar right now. You want to mark that, you want to get a pen right now, January 20th and 21st, go thrivetimeshow.com. Teserve your seat for January 20th and 21st, Thrive Time Show. Go to that website, thrivetimeshow.com reserve those tickets. Now Z, I want to ask you here. When you talk about differentiating your business, there’s tons of optometrist in Tulsa, many of which, actually all of which went to school. They have a degree.

Dr. Zoellner: Apparently. Yes.

Clay: They’re optometrist. So let’s get into move number one. Move number one is you must know how you stack up versus the other guys. You must have a purple cow. You must understand the concept of the purple cow. Z, why is it so important that you figure out what makes you unique right away? Why do you have to figure that out?

Dr. Zoellner: Because here’s the deal. It’s funny, I talk to businesses right now that come to me and they want major shift and of course that’s why we put together the whole thrive15.com website. If you haven’t checked that out, go check that out thrive15.com because you can only business and you can coach some people. I remember I was talking to one guy and he was the CEO of a bank and he looked at me and he goes, “You know man, were more special. We’re different. We’re better than those other banks.” I said, “Really?”

Clay: We’re established.

Dr. Zoellner: “Really?” I said, “Well, how are you?” He look at me and goes, “That’s a good question.” I said, “Well, Y’all in money,” kind of like optometrist, you all do exams, right? I mean you know.

Clay: I really love retinas. I’m the corn of the king.

Dr. Zoellner: You sell glasses. I mean we buy them. There’s so many vendors in the world. We’re all buying from the same vendors, just like the bank. Is your money better than their money? Sometimes you break it down. You think, “It’s just the commodity. There’s no way to differentiate myself. I mean a bank’s a bank, an optometrist is an optometrist.

Clay: Big suckers, big suckers.

Dr. Zoellner: Hey, they can fix a radiator. We can fix a radiator, so really I guess there isn’t differentiating. On today’s show, we’re going to give you some secret sauce, some little hot sauce on how to do that, how to get your mind wrapped around that, so then you can actually go, “You know what? Even though we’re doing the exact same thing as a competitor down the street, we’re going to do it and make it appear that we’re going to be doing it better.”

Clay: Jon’s going to walk you through how to do it on your website, because so many of you will have a website.

Dr. Zoellner: I can have it for today’s show.

Clay: You’re getting a lot of traffic.

Dr. Zoellner: Can we skip this next break and get into it or do we have to do this?

Clay: I have to go to the break because I got to go to Oklahoma Joe’s real quick. I timed it. I can get out there. Get some baked beans.

Dr. Zoellner: All right. Well, don’t go anywhere because this show is hot sauce.

Clay: Thrivetimeshow.com, Thrivetimeshow.com.

[music]

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

Clay: Hello, thrive nation. Welcome back into the conversation. If you have been looking for that self-help, that encouragement, that business knowledge that you couldn’t find in college, you have found the right place. Today, we are talking about specifically how to differentiate your business in a crowded marketplace. Z, I’ve got a song ready here that I think totally demonstrates the power of differentiating yourself in a crowded marketplace.

Dr. Zoellner: This is harking back to your DJ days.

Clay: It kind of does, this idea germinated in my brain. I went to church. We go to the Metropolitan Baptist church in downtown Tulsa, but there’s about eight weeks ago. We had family in town and we couldn’t get out there so we went to a nearby church. I’m sitting next to a guy and I look at him and he looks just like Rod Stewart. Z, you know what I’m talking about? The Rod Stewart hair. Rod Stewart, there’s a quote Rod Stewart. He says, “It’s not about the music. It’s about selling music.”

Dr. Zoellner: I like that.

[music]

Clay: So here is Rod Stewart. Remember that song, Do You Think I’m Sexy? Rod Stewart.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes.

Clay: Rod Stewart, people don’t realize. He was a professional soccer player and it occurred to him that they would have these big parties, and he would grab the mic and dance around. It occurred to him, “I could kill it in the game of music,” and so he got this whole look and this whole style and this whole vibe and he just sells every song. The whole thing is Rod Stewart, if you see Rod Stewart’s hair, you don’t miss that. There’s a lot of people who can sing very well but he would jump off of the speakers and dance around and the energy he brought, that’s what differentiated him.

Prince is an awesome artist we unfortunately lost this year, but Prince is a phenomenal musician. But I can tell you what, he’s probably the one of the top elite musicians I’ve ever seen. However I can tell you, sad story, I have seen people that are at an elite level with their music talent but they’re not really good at marketing that talent and therefore they don’t get to reap the fruits of their efforts there. So we’re talking today about how to stand out, specifically under the microscope, under the focus, under that myopic look into the world of optometry and how you’ve been able to differentiate yourself for 25 years at Dr. Robert Zoellner and Associates.

Dr. Zoellner: Well here’s the deal, my first move was value. I brought value and I brought a little bit of fun to optometry. That was my first way, that was the first purple cow I brought out into the pasture.

Clay: What does value mean from your perspective?

Dr. Zoellner: Low price.

Clay: Low price?

Dr. Zoellner: I mean there’s a reason why Walmart is value-driven in their marketing.

Clay: I don’t want to be known as the cheap doctor. I don’t want to be known as a cheap dentist. I don’t want to be known as a cheap —

Dr. Zoellner: That’s your choice. I tell you what, Nordstrom’s and Dillards have different approaches. When you’re starting your business, I mean you could either be this little boutique store that sells you’re very expensive stuff and that can be a differentiator for you.

Clay: “Welcome to Snerdly’s Optometry.”

Dr. Zoellner: Welcome, where you’ll get a pedicure with every eye exam. I mean, you could different — I’m not telling you how to do it. I’m telling you how I did it. My first move, you asked me before the break, my first move was value and I did a thing of like a two pair deal for 99 dollars. It was a colored pair of contacts and a clear pair because I figured out that a lot of people wanted to have a little fun with some colored contact lenses but then also want —

Clay: They want to mix it up.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes, but then they also want to be able to come in with a clear pair because if someone says, “Ooh, your eyes aren’t green and they look green today.” Then they can quickly slipper there clear once and say, “What are you talking about? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Clay: Don’t know what you’re talking about.

Dr. Zoellner: So value is kind of my first differentiator. Then another thing I think it’s so important out there is to find a parade and get in front of it. Actually, I got celebrities to endorse me. How do I do that? I pay them money.

Clay: Wait a minute. Are you saying that Michael Jordan has been paid money to endorse Gatorade?

Dr. Zoellner: He might like Gatorade. I don’t know, I mean there’s so many different flavors and colors now. I guess you probably find one you like but I don’t know how much he likes it but on the commercials it sure looks like he drinks it a lot.

Clay: Okay. Let me ask you this. Let me ask this because we have Jonathan Kelly on the on the show here. He’s our in-house marketing wizard. He sits down with business owners everyday who are struggling to differentiate themselves and helps them do it. In one area that you really help people a lot is on the website, because everyone has these conservative website where they all look the same and no one wants to stand out for risk of being criticized. What are some tips you’d have for the listener on how they can differentiate their website?

Jonathan: Well, I’d say one thing is you want to make it a no-brainer for people to contact you.

Clay: “No-brain, that’s cool. Well, that’s what I do all the time.”

Dr. Zoellner: “I don’t have a brain anyway.”

Jonathan: Everybody can offer great service, but it’s much different to actually get those butts in the doors. One of the ways to get the butts in the doors is, “Hey, just try us. Just try us for a dollar,” or whatever that offer might be just to get the butts in the doors so you can actually prove your service, your quality, all of those other things. What I would say is I would want to have a clear call-to-action at the top, above the fold, and make sure that you are using a no-brainer offer that people are like, “Hey, you know what? Why would I not try out this service?”

Dr. Zoellner: “Why would I not? I don’t have a brain.”

[laughter]

Clay: I know. Here’s something that I give — This is the best example I can give you, the best audio example. We’ve all been in a wedding reception where the music’s playing, and it’s a song like, Just the way you look tonight and then you are like going, “Babe, I think we need to go. Can we go? Can we go?” But she, “No. We know the bride. Let’s stick around till after the cake.”

Dr. Zoellner: It’s just like, okay — set the stage a little bit. It’s like an ethnic one where it’s like my friend, he is Jewish. When they throw a wedding, it’s a party or just like the Baptist party where you’re in your gymnasium with Cool Aid. Which one is it?

Clay: This is like you’re at Tarp Chapel, nice place.

Dr. Zoellner: Okay, Tarp Chapel.

Clay: But it’s 12:00 PM.

Dr. Zoellner: Okay.

Clay: This is 12 in the afternoon. It ends at like three.

Jonathan: [unintelligible 00:31:21] dinner. That’s important.

Clay: You are having cheese cubes. It’s a great place. [unintelligible 00:31:24] but you got to finish —

Dr. Zoellner: Little crackers, little Ritz crackers.

Clay: You got to finish before the next wedding because the next wedding is like in five.

Dr. Zoellner: Okay. I am just getting the vibe. Okay, we’re there.

Clay: You’re having cheese cubes and you are like, “Well, I probably shouldn’t,” but they have those club crackers, the really nice ones.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes, yes, the rectangular ones.

Clay: You are going back. You’re going like, “We got to leave.” Then all of a sudden, like an angel from heaven, this happens. It starts to play. You start to get this mojo. Let me say we can get it going here. “Oh, it’s not going to work for me.” Z, this is a crime against humanity. When we come back, I might have to queue this up here. What happens is somebody plays a brass monkey or something.

Dr. Zoellner: [laughs] Brass.

Jonathan: Monkey, monkey.

Clay: All of a sudden, you’re like, “Oh, that’s my jam,” and you run to the floor.

Dr. Zoellner: You dropped your cheese cubes? You just drop them.

Clay: You dropped the cheese cubes. That’s what happens —

Dr. Zoellner: You just stuff them in your mouth.

Clay: Yes. What happens is, all of a sudden though, it’s creates an energy. That’s what having a solid call-to-action on your website does. It shocks you into, “Well, I am just kind of looking at the site,” till like, “Man, I got to do that.” Some examples right now, you’re optometry clinic. You have a special on the site where it’s $99 for one pair of fashionable glasses and an eye exam.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes, with free frame warranty. You can add for $129, for just $ 30 more, you can add a second pair.

Clay: How can you afford to do that?

Dr. Zoellner: How can I afford not to?

Clay: You are saying that this is a —

Dr. Zoellner: I got to get them in the doors. It’s called advertising, marketing. You get them in the door.

[music]

Clay: There it is. Come on, man. See, it doesn’t want to work for us here. They just added a little element of excitement.

Dr. Zoellner: But you’re DJs. This is the part. You stop. You sell your company. You stop DJ-ing and then this is what —

Jonathan: He’s out the game now. He’s out the game.

Clay: This is what happens. I’m out of the game.

Dr. Zoellner: He is out of the games. He’s out of the game.

Clay: I can’t even play properly anymore. But here’s the thing, thrivers. When you’re listening, if you listen to this right now, I want you to get out a sheet of paper and I want you to jot down what is it that makes your business stand out in a crowded marketplace? It has to be a purple cow. If you’re driving out till [unintelligible 00:33:13], to your ranch, there’s a lot of brown cows you’re going to pass.

Dr. Zoellner: Moo. Black ones too.

Clay: Black ones.

Dr. Zoellner: Moo.

Clay: But if one was purple, you would pull over. You would go, “What is that?” Or your kid would —

Dr. Zoellner: “What did they do to that cow? I got to call PETA.” [laughs]

Clay: What happens is so many people are so worried about paying painting their cows purple because they’re saying, “Is this ethical?”

Dr. Zoellner: “Can I do that?”

Clay: But you got to have a move.

Dr. Zoellner: You got to have a move. Otherwise, you’re just going to be the same wahm-wa-wahm-wa-wahm-wa.

Clay: You got to have the leads.

[music]

There it is. Oh. They’re back now.

Dr. Zoellner: Oh my gosh. There we go. DJ Clay is back in the house.

Clay: Thrivers, I’m just telling you what, you’ve got to have leads. It’s all about the leads. I’ll tell you what’s wrong with most businesses right now. They don’t have enough leads.

Dr. Zoellner: They don’t have enough leads. You know what, today’s show is all about creating leads and turning those leads into people in the store, and then turning those people into money in your pocket.

Clay: Now, when we come back, Jon’s going to educate us about comparing you versus the other guys. You versus the other guys.

[music]

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

Clay: All right, thrive nation, welcome back to the inspiration conversation. My name is Clay Clarke and I am the audio sensation and perhaps America’s most humble man. I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year, in your ear. Guess who is who here today inside the box that rocks? Is it Trevor? Is it Kevin? It’s Dr. Zoellner. He is back. He is back in the box.

Dr. Zoellner: Hello thrivers and Happy New Year. Clay, I’ll tell you what. I can’t verify with 100% accuracy whether you are the most humble man in the world but I can do this. I can pretty much verify with a 98.7% accuracy rate that you are the palest man.

Clay: See, he always — I thought it was going to be a compliment and then he just takes me down.

Dr. Zoellner: No, it’s fun. It’s very light.

Jonathan: Back-handed. It’s a back-handed compliment.

Clay: Back in the day, I can’t verify the time to the dates but rumor has it that women used to want to stay pale.

Dr. Zoellner: Oh ,yes?

Clay: Now, they’re wanting to tan?

Dr. Zoellner: No, they want to mix it up. It’s kind of like I cut my hair to make it grow long. I get tan so I can then be pale. I get pale so that I can have a tan.

Clay: You’re kind of a historian. You remember back in the day where people wouldn’t smile and they wanted to be pale?

Dr. Zoellner: Yes, yes.

Clay: Women wanted to be pale and not smile?

Dr. Zoellner: Yes.

Clay: I would’ve been a perfect woman back in the day.

Dr. Zoellner: [laughs]

Clay: I would’ve been —

Jonathan: You’re the Monalisa of business, is what you’re trying to say.

Clay: Oh nice, yes.

[crosstalk]

Clay: That’s Jonathan Kelly coming in hot.

Dr. Zoellner: Jonathan Kelly, that’s why he is in-charge of our marketing and advertising and search engine magic.

Clay: Now, I’m going to tell this, thrivers. If you’re listening and you’re going, “I got to take my website optimization to the next level. I don’t know how to get to the top of Google.” Maybe you’re listening and you say, “I am at the top of Google but my phone is not ringing.” Let me walk you through. There’s a four-part little science of how we do it here. Jon will walk you through how we do each step. But the first part is you define what makes you different. The second step is you have to act, okay. The third is you measure. Then you have to measure the data and refine.

So gentlemen, let’s talk about defining. What makes you different? What kind of things — Let’s say that I’m listening right now and I am a bakery. What are some things that you could do potentially, to make my bakery, or what are some things if I want to mess with, to make our bakery different?

Jonathan: You’re going to want to do a couple of things. One, you are going to want to actually clearly define what makes you different than other bakeries. I know that seems like everybody’s like, “Oh, you know what? I don’t want to do that because it’s industry and –“

Clay: We’re professional.

Jonathan: Yes, “We’re all professional here.”

Clay: We’re from Tulsa-based.

Jonathan: Yes, yes. We’re all kinder spirit. But what you want to do is you want to make sure that you’re actually clearly defining that, saying, “Hey, this is what we do and this is what most other competitors do.”

Clay: Are you saying that you’re going to compare potential — I mean you’re going to be like Geico where you’re running a commercial saying, “Take 15 minutes, maybe you can save 15%.” You’re actually going to be — What was that ad we saw online the other day where the guy straight up was comparing the two websites. It was on top of Google and they were totally saying the alternative to this. Remember that?

Jonathan: I think it was Home Advisor and Angie’s List. If you actually Google Angie’s List, Home Advisor comes up and it says, “Better than her list.”

Dr. Zoellner: That’s a little naughty move.

Clay: Taking the food out of the mouth.

Dr. Zoellner: Is that ethical?

Jonathan: Is that ethical?

Clay: Now, once you take action, once you begin to do the next step, why do you have to eventually take action? Where do you see a lot of clients? If you have them all over the world, let’s just say we have people from New York in here, Florida. When people come to Tulsa and we sit down with them for a two-day workshop, where do most people get it wrong, Jon? Once they’ve defined, why are so many people not wanting to take that action?

Jonathan: I would say, it’s one thing to define something and it’s a whole different thing to actually carry it out because that’s where the work is. It’s one thing to make a claim.

Dr. Zoellner: We’re back to that four letter word.

Jonathan: It’s another thing to be like, “You know what? I actually have to deliver on this claim that I just made.”

Clay: What? Not very nice at all.

Jonathan: It’s hard work.

Dr. Zoellner: You’re saying if I say I’ve got the best cookies, I use the best chocolates, then I actually have to try to make a chocolate chip cookie that’s good?

Jonathan: Yes. Truth bombs.

Clay: Truth bombs. Everybody, now guys, I’m going to tell you what, this is the part about acting that’s scary. You remember back in the day when Tina Turner grew out that big mop?

Jonathan: Oh yes.

Clay: You remember that? Whereas Tina Turner, she’s a young singer. All of a sudden now, she is dating Ike.

Dr. Zoellner: Oh yes.

Clay: She had hair that was like straightened, it was pretty.

It’s pretty normal hair and at one point this is what she did. She goes —

[music]

I’m going to get that thing big.

Dr. Zoellner: I’m going to go big.

Clay: I’m going to go big. I mean and you’re going, “That big? I’m going to go bigger.”

Dr. Zoellner: The biggest.

Clay: That big? She goes, “I’m going to wear tights all the time and sparkles.” All of a sudden, Z, she’s out there performing.

Dr. Zoellner: You’re like, “What is going?”

Clay: Your friends are going, “Okay. I’ll go with it. I’ll go with it.”

Dr. Zoellner: Sure.

Clay: But the first time that you bust out that big mop, that big wig, it’s cool scary.

Dr. Zoellner: [laughs] It’s a little scary because all of a sudden you’re putting yourself out there. When you define and you start to act, now the thing that’s going to happen and it’s horrible what it does but you get some rejection.

Clay: Can I tell you about a streaking experience?

[laughter]

Dr. Zoellner: It’s about time. I’ve been wondering. We’ve done a hundred plus shows now and I’ve been waiting patiently for you to tell about the story by the way.

Jonathan: No visuals, please. No visuals.

Clay: Now the statute of limitations has now passed. I’m 36, I was 18. I guess I was 19 but I was going to get married and the guys thought, “Hey, good idea. What we’ll do is we’ll have him streak, sprint totally naked from the Oral Roberts University dormitories down to the Mabee center. That’s what we’re going to do.”

Dr. Zoellner: This is sounding like a really good idea by the way.

Clay: Yes and I-

Jonathan: That’s also Oral Roberts Christian University.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes of course.

Clay: I had no control over this because the guys I’m not kidding, they literally put me in a bronco. They took off all my clothes and they said, “We’ll see you at the Mabee center.” I am in the upper lot and I’m getting married the next day and so I’m like, “Oh no.” I waited there for probably it seemed like hours, it was probably 20 minutes. I’m going, “They’re not going to come.”

[laughter]

Dr. Zoellner: They didn’t actually.

Clay: They defined, they said, “This is going to be awesome,” but the next step is you have to act. They did. They took my clothes off. They left me bronco and now I’m going, “Oh no.” I began to just run and the problem is the first person I run into somebody’s soccer mom I’m sure. Somebody’s mom and I’m not kidding.

[laughter]

I’m ducked behind a bush. I’m at the [unintelligible 00:41:59] gardens now. I’ve got to hide and I —

Dr. Zoellner: You’re praying, you’re really praying now.

Clay: I’m running and if you’ve ever been to ORU, there is nowhere to hide. You’re running straight down a massive Hill of the Mabee center. I get in there, I’m going to tell you what, if you’re going to measure how scary of situation it was, there were so many people like, “oh, oh look at that, what in the world?” All I’m just saying is that’s where you would want define right there, you wouldn’t want to keep doing that.

Announcer: You’re listeningto the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170.

Clay: I want to get into this. You define, you act. Hopefully, your act doesn’t involve streaking.

Jonathan: It’s a great story by the way.

Dr. Zoellner: Did you make it?

Clay: I did make it and I’m telling you they were videoing the whole thing. I’m still sort of angry about it. This is more a therapy for me to share.

Dr. Zoellner: Well just vent it, just let it out.

Clay: Yes I’m just going to —

Dr. Zoellner: You got to ventilate.

Jonathan: It’s a safe place.

Dr. Zoellner: I will tell you that it’s okay for you to be upset. That was a very honory thing those young men did to you.

Clay: Yes, it was-

Dr. Zoellner: – and that the scars that are resulting are going to just keep healing and you will get over it.

Clay: I will, I am on the —

Dr. Zoellner: I’m validating so you can ventilate.

Clay: I’ve been listening to a lot of what a wonderful world but the one with the guy with — was it ukelele?

Dr. Zoellner: Yes, yes.

Clay: That’s one of my calming method.

Dr. Zoellner: There you go.

Clay: You define, you act but, Jon, the third is you have to measure the results. In my case, I’m going to tell you what, if I were to do that twice I’d probably be arrested on the second time so that’s probably not the move. When you’re running ads, where do people get it wrong and where do they get discouraged when they run their first one or two or three ad campaigns and they maybe don’t get that immediate result, Jon?

Jonathan: One thing is like, so they have a great idea, so everybody’s got this great idea. This is definitely going to be the one that’s going to get people in the doors.

Clay: It’s going to be huge.

Jonathan: They run it for just a week or two and then they don’t see the results that they’re looking for. They get discouraged but then they give up on actually looking and measuring what the results are.

Clay: I feel like everybody believes that if they have the right idea, the great business idea, they’re going to be millionaires.

Dr. Zoellner: Bro man, these coffee shops can revolutionize the world, man. It’s really not about coffee but I think we probably should sell some because it’s a coffee shop.

Clay: Bro, I was just thinking man. We could bring in these imported chocolate bars and we could just put those by the coffee and even though there’s no customers there, but eventually it will cause like a chain reaction.

Jonathan: It’s fair trade bro, fair trade.

Clay: Fair trade, bro, and then the sales will start to happen. Let’s put it in a real down area, bro.

Dr. Zoellner: I just need one bro in there to get coffee, man, that’s could just explode.

Jonathan: I got a little cap on and it’s 90 degrees outside, but it’s fair trade.

Clay: [laughs] All right, here’s the deal. Here’s the deal, thrivers. Somebody needs to write this down. You need to write this down right now. You need to tell maybe somebody you’re married to, tell yourself, talk to somebody, somebody needs to hear this, you don’t have a business until you sell something.

Dr. Zoellner: What? Back up, back up.

Clay: Back up, back up because it’s —

Dr. Zoellner: That’s just mean. No way, it’s in my brain. I got it. You don’t understand. It’s complete within me. I got this.

Clay: You don’t have a business until you sell something. I got something that’s going to rhyme with you. If you can’t sell your business will go to, “Hey, how you doing?”

Dr. Zoellner: How you doing?

Clay: It’s not going to do well.

Dr. Zoellner: It’s not going to well.

Clay: If you can’t sell.

Dr. Zoellner: If you can’t sell.

Clay: What you got to do is you got to put up a bias on marketing. You got to put a bias on marketing. That’s what —

Dr. Zoellner: Wait a sec, wait a sec, wait a sec. I spent all my money on the build out, this place is super cool. I spent all my money on my product. You got to understand these latte machines are expensive bro. Bro they’re expensive. Now, I spent all my money on, I had to redo the parking lot but bro it looks really awesome. I relined it and —

Clay: It’s hot sizzle.

Dr. Zoellner: Hot sizzle bro, hot sizzle. Plenty of parking spaces out there. Bro, I can’t afford to market. I can’t afford to do advertising.

Clay: If I spend money on the internet next thing you know I have to build a website. Then I’ll have to get some business cards and I got to hire a sales guy. I just don’t mess with the internet. For me it’s all organic and all-natural. It’s person to person. It’s word of mouth my friend. All of my business is word of mouth. Now Z, people don’t get stuck in these traps, these mental traps. When we get back we’re going to assume that you have acted.

Dr. Zoellner: Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough.

Clay: We’re going to assume you are refining but now we’re going to get into specifically how to compare yourself to the other guys.

Dr. Zoellner: I’ve got a great super-move that I did when I first started out and it is so fun and you don’t want to miss it.

Clay: If you’re watching on Facebook live, we promise that neither I nor Jon Kelly will be doing any streaking during the remainder of this show.

Dr. Zoellner: I’m not going to give that promise.

Jonathan: No.

Clay: I can’t —

Dr. Zoellner: I can’t verify that.

Jonathan: I was told something differently.

Clay: That’s a very Trump-esque guarantee right there. Can I guarantee?

Dr. Zoellner: I should just go running by the window here.

Clay: Thrivetimeshow.com.

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[music]

Announcer: Broadcasting from the center of the universe, featuring optometrist turned entrepreneur, Dr. Robert Zoellner and US SBA Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark. This the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170.

Clay: All right 1170 listeners, welcome back to your favorite show. In fact, I’m telling you what, I am super excited to be here with you wherever you are, talking about one of my favorite subjects which is how to make your business boom, Dr. Z, how to make your business-

Dr. Zoellner: Boom.

Clay: Boom. Now, I’m going to talk about what that — because if you’re listening right now and you don’t know what it means to make your business boom, we’re going to talk about today specifically how to differentiate your business in the marketplace, yes but why? It’s to make your business boom.

Dr. Zoellner: Boom, chucka-laka boom. Hey, you know what? A beautiful man just walked by. His own purple cow, Tim Redman just walked by.

Clay: Tim Redman, yes.

Dr. Zoellner: I gave him a little wave and so if you’re on Facebook live, you catch these little purple cows I mean walking by here at the Thrive15 headquarters.

Clay: Yes. We’ve got the who is who here of Tulsa always inside the building, real people. Now, I’m going to read you a notable quotable from a book called Scale written by the founder of, here it is, William Shatner’s company, William Shatner Priceline. It just escaped me from the founder of Priceline. He says this, he says, “The world doesn’t pay you for the hours you put in. It pays you for the value you create.”

He goes on to say, “The goal of owning a business,” here’s where it gets weird, “The goal of owning a business is not to be needed but in fact the opposite, to build a business that doesn’t need you. Remember the finish line is not just to be profitable. The real finish line is to build a truly scalable business that creates massive value in the marketplace without needing you to be there every day to run it,” oh my God.

Dr. Zoellner: But wait a second. Nobody can make the bagels as well as I can. It’s a family recipe been handed down.

Clay: It’s Oswald’s bagels.

Dr. Zoellner: It’s been handed down for generations. You don’t understand, and you want me to entrust some idiot off the street to make my bagels and put my name on it?

Clay: I will tell you. The one thing I do — I’m sorry it’s hard for me to hold a conversation because my phone is always ringing and I pride myself on answering every phone call. “Hey, thank you for calling Oswald’s bagels. Yes, I’ll be right back with you.” Anyway Z, I was saying I make all the bagels myself. I made all the check list that I use myself. I call it Oswald’s Bagels because I am Oswald.

Jonathan: One could say you’re needed.

Dr. Zoellner: One would say you have a job and not a business.

Clay Clark: I have a deal where I work 107 hours a week because that is all that’s mathematically possible. I have to try it. Oswalds Bagel’s.

Dr. Zoellner: Oswald’s Bagels. Someone is going to b listening out there going, “Oh my gosh, that’s the name of my business. Oswalds Bagel’s.

Clay: I’m sorry.

Dr. Zoellner: Oswald, if you are out there, you’re getting some free advertising number one. You’re welcome. It’s never too soon to send us some bagels.

Clay: I’m going to talk about this Z because I see you do it and this is what the thing is. You want to go ahead and draw a pyramid Thrivers. You’re listening right now, get out a sheet paper and draw a pyramid.

Dr. Zoellner: It’s a pyramid scam? That’s what we’re doing, the old pyramid scam.

Clay: A very simple pyramid.

Dr. Zoellner: All right, I’m drawing it. I’m drawing it.

Clay: Okay, at the bottom of the pyramid.

Dr. Zoellner: Do you want Egyptian or Mayan pyramid?

Clay: Well, let’s go with the Mayan. They are underrated. The Mayan.

Dr. Zoellner: Okay.

Clay: At the bottom of the pyramid, you have to write product. You have to have a product that people want. The second, right above the product, you got to have sales.

Dr. Zoellner: Sales. This is getting kind of squirrelly.

Clay: Right above that, you got to have quality.

Dr. Zoellner: Oh gosh, okay.

Clay: Finally, that’s you self-actualizing. You get to do whatever you want. So simple.

Dr. Zoellner: Time out. Time out. Time out. That sounds so simple.

Clay: It is simple. It’s simple but it requires diligence. I think about your auto auction. You sat down at one point with a team. I know you did it. You sat down and had to figure out a product that people would want.

Dr. Zoellner: Okay. Boom.

Clay: How many hours did you spend on that buddy? Is it hundreds of hours? I mean, 7 hours? How long did it take you to really build the auto auction systems, your first go around?

Dr. Zoellner: Hundreds of hours.

Clay: Okay, so you’re sitting down.

Dr. Zoellner: I mean, it wasn’t overnight. It was like, “Okay, let’s order a cheese pizza, knock this out while we’re watching football game.” No, it was you know–

Clay: It was intense.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes. It’s intense. Thing about is that okay now you have your manual down you think your done. Boom, you’re zipped up, your done. No, it’s a constant redefining, re tweaking. We can do this better. This change, that change. Boom, Boom, Boom. Boom.

Clay: You made a product that people wanted.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes, absolutely.

Clay: Then after you made the product, you have to sell it.

Dr. Zoellner: You’re right. You got me there.

Clay: I’m going to ask you on the air this question but when you bought the auto auction, when you go out there and build a — can you explain to the Thrivers where the Z 66 auto auction is is located.

Dr. Zoellner: Here in Tulsa, if you’re familiar with Tulsa we have one roundabout or one traffic — actually we have one downtown. This is the one that’s at Mingo and Admiral. Admiral is the road that actually divides Tulsa north and south by the way. Just north of that intersection on the west side of the road there is about 15 acres there. I have 20 acres across the road. It’s right there next to 244, which is one of our main major highways thoroughfares through Tulsa.

Clay: The roundabout.

Dr. Zoellner: The roundabout.

Clay: People get and over there, and you look at it and you’re going — I don’t know, I was just looking it up on Craig’s List but it probably cost you $7 to build it. $7? Eight?

Dr. Zoellner: [laughs] Yes. A couple more commas and zeros.

Clay: With no more customers though. No customers. You’re still just building the infrastructure.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes. Absolutely. I had to buy the land, which was expensive.

Clay: $7

Dr. Zoellner: Yes. Bought it off Mike Fine, he’s a tough negotiator by the way. Mike Fine [unintelligible 00:53:10] parking.

Clay: Mike Fine? Hey, if you’re listening right now and you know Mike Fine. I’ll tell you what, I was in —

Dr. Zoellner: Yes, you can text him, “You’re a tough negotiator” from Z.

Clay: — I was randomly skiing in Denver, lo and behold, comes into the restaurant Kirk Frier the district manager from Farmers Insurance and Mike Fine. I’m like, “What is going on? Why are you guys here? You unicorns all in the same place.” Unbelievable. Back to you though.

Dr. Zoellner: Anyways, I had to buy the land. Then I had to, of course, design as I’m buying, as I’m negotiating to buy it. Mike Fine’s a tough negotiator. I had to buy the land.

Clay: Great negotiator.

Dr. Zoellner: I had to design it. Then I had to go through a bunch of stuff with the city and with FEMA because there was a corner of it was flood plains. That was a whole —

Clay: Go through it meaning you love sin city.

Dr. Zoellner: It’s so great. Government regulations are just so encouraging for business.

Clay: We love you. Government is so good at getting jobs.

Dr. Zoellner: Efficient with their time and those permits. It’s just easy. It’s just easy.

Clay: Thank you government.

Dr. Zoellner: They make it so easy. You just want to do it again.

Clay: The bigger the government is, the better. Back to you.

Dr. Zoellner: No doubt about that because they’re here for us. But the point is then you got to start building it. I went from about halfway through the process I had my team around me I looked at them and I said, “Okay guys, we have officially gone from I hope this works to this has to work.”

Clay: Come on now. Which leads us to one of your top 10 rules of business. You’ve got to be the one at breakfast my man.

Dr. Zoellner: Well it’s number three. You got to be the pig and not the chicken. Now, wait a second. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back that up a second. [music] “You see down on the farm, ma use to make us a great big breakfast every morning. In that breakfast she had scrambled me up some eggs. Sizzle me up some bacon. I’d fill my belly with hot buttered biscuits.”

Clay: “Hey man. You guys. Can I have another biscuit please?”

Dr. Zoellner: “I’d work all morning long until I got a little hungry for lunch.” Now, here’s the deal. At breakfast, you have eggs and bacon. This may sound kind of simplistic. But the chicken was involved in breakfast. Other words, laid an egg and wandered off. Went pecking in the grass, chasing June bugs. That’s what they do right? But the pig gave his life.

Clay: He’s all in.

Dr. Zoellner: He was all in. He was committed to breakfast. That is one of the rules you got to be in business. At some point you got to go, “Okay, I hope this works. This is a hobby. Maybe it will be, you know.”

Clay: It can be disruptive. Let’s go out for a movie tonight. Then for the owner, you’re going, “I’m not going out to a movie. I can’t afford a movie. I have to get this thing going.” You start off with that product. Then you got to do sales. John is a rainmaker. He helps people sell things.

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

Clay: John, talk to me about– you’ve seen so many business owners that come in here with a great ideas. I’m going to brag on Coach Calvert with scorebball.com. He has the best basketball camps in Tulsa and he knows it. What separates coach Calvert from other business owners that you’ve seen? From most business owners, from the average business?

Jonathan Kelly: What I’d say is coach Calvert actually has this honey badger mentality. We’ll secret shop our clients just to make sure that all the systems and the checklists —

Clay: I mean, we call them to see if they call us back. We leave them a voicemail. We fill out a form.

Jonathan: I put my number in one of the forms for coach Calvert and a homeboy lights me up.

Clay: Like a Christmas tree. Boom.

Jonathan: He calls me three times, same day. Texts me twice and sends me an email.

Dr. Zoellner: He woofed you.

Jonathan: He woofed me. That’s exactly right. Then I tell him, “Hey listen. This is awesome. You are just after it.”

Clay: He’s a unicorn.

Jonathan: He was actually kind of mad that I wasn’t a real lead. He was just like, “So, you’re saying I could just cross you off my list then. This person– This is not a real person?”

Clay: You’re going to book for camper. I know you’re getting in your 30s but do you want to do — we have a late 20s basketball camps we just started.

Jonathan: I understand you’re a short white guy but you still want to —

Dr. Zoellner: You reached out to me. You got to be in the countdown.

Jonathan: Yes. Yes.

[laughter]

Dr. Zoellner: Well before the break, Clay. I talked about one of the early moves I did. One of those secret hot sauce moves I did.

Clay: Give me your hot sauce.

Dr. Zoellner: When you literally walked into my optometry office, I had a board set up there. A whiteboard. On there, I had my competitors and myself side by side. I had the exact same product and the different prices at each of the different optical stores in the area.

Clay: You took the time to study the other guys?

Dr. Zoellner: [whispers] Yes. I went over there and snuck around them.

Clay: Real quick. This is a deep thought. Some of you go, “Why does he always talk about the Patriots? Why does he always do that?”

Dr. Zoellner: Oh here we go.

Clay: Here’s the deal. Did you know that Bill Belichick literally hired and I’m not kidding. He has literally hired — you got to look this up Thrivers. You can look it up. You can watch Bill Belichick — there’s a video on YouTube about this. He hired a rocket scientist recently to replace himself as the film guy because he wanted — true story. The guy is watching the film now is super detailed. He’s coming in going, “There offensive tackle has a bad left knee. We should expose that weakness.” He just straight up but he studies every game and he comes to Bill with a chart of weaknesses to expose. That is so genius to do that.

Dr. Zoellner: Wait a second. Wait a second. A rocket scientist?

Clay: True story, yes.

Dr. Zoellner: Does the film then explode and go into orbit?

Clay: If you get a chance to go onto Youtube and watch the video. It’s about how they haven’t had the Patriots beat the Seahawks. My brother-in-law, he didn’t believe me. He went and watched it. He goes, “Are you kidding me?” The whole attention to detail knowing what you’re up against matters. So Z, you’re saying you actually knew the other guys, what they were doing.

Dr. Zoellner: Exactly. It’s so funny because when you’re at the bottom of the rung. You’re trying to climb up that ladder of success. You’re out there working, you’re hustling and then you get to the top of the ladder you think this is awesome. Then all of sudden, you see your competitors scoring under your place, and looking at your prices and writing stuff down. You’re like, “Hey wait a second. You can’t do my moves.”

Clay: I swear, nobody can cheat like I cheat.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes. They’re just sneaky.

Clay: Why are you deflating the balls? My job is to deflate the balls? Why would you deflate a ball? I was unethical but when I did it, it was a ball boy. He took the ball but I don’t know what happened.

Dr. Zoellner: I don’t know. Tom’s hand was sore that day. He needed a softer ball.

Clay: Just something and John’s a Giants fan.

Dr. Zoellner: Medical purposes.

Clay: Could not possibly understand what it would be like to deflate balls.

Jonathan: I could not. I could understand how it is to beat the Patriots.

Clay: Now, Thrivers. Once you start again, you make the product. Then you got to market that product but the next level is you got to get that feedback. Now, Z once you start selling something you got to get feedback man. You got to get that feedback.

Dr. Zoellner: You know what? This is the tough part because this is going to hurt somebody out there feelings. I don’t want to do that because — can we just all hold hands and sing Kumbaya. Let’s just hold hands.

Clay and Jonathan:: [sings] Kumbaya my lord, Kumbaya.

Dr. Zoellner: Some of the feedback you’re going to get is going to be negative.

Clay: What? What?

Dr. Zoellner: It’s going to hurt your feelers and you’re going to want to go,

“No way”, and yet it happens. Now, in this day and age with the trolls.

Clay: The trolls are in control at the online reviews. [crosstalk]

Dr. Zoellner: “Oh, it might wear me out this thing of trolling and trolls, and people just hate stuff, and oh.”

Clay: “I commented on your Tulsa World article under their fake name and I want you to know I have strong feelings about it that I would never say to your face.”

Dr. Zoellner: Okay. Clay, sweat this. So, sweat this. The busiest week of the year is the last week of the year which we just encountered. I mean, crazy busy. Everybody’s off work. Nobody wants to get their eye care. Everybody has those cafeteria plans where they’ve set money aside, pre-tax dollars and now they have to use it or they say lose it.

Clay: Use it or lose it.

Dr. Zoellner: You know minutes, there’s a crunch time to it. They got to get in that week. Right? They didn’t have to have any surgeries that year. They didn’t have to do anything, so I got this money thing from a guy and you know medical–

Clay: “Glasses. Get your glasses glasses.[unintelligible 01:00:51]“

Dr. Zoellner: [crosstalk] “Step right up and get your glasses.” And so, a dude just posted. Gave me a one-star review-

Clay: Come on.

Dr. Zoellner: – and he said, in there literally. He said, “Man, I was on hold for literally 10 minutes.” I’m like, “Bro”

.

Clay: You know what that means? That means this, Z, that means the business is booming. Right? Boom, boom, boom. The business is boo- [crosstalk]

Dr. Zoellner: Yes, I know. But at least take that I’m like– I’m like, “You came in and got glasses”, he said “I was on hold to find out of my glasses are ready”. I’m like, “You couldn’t talk about your experience to come in?”

Clay: I have a Yogi Berra quote for you. I have a Yogi Berra quote.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes. Give it to me.

Clay: Yoga Berra, a famous Hall of Fame baseball player. He says this, “That restaurant is so busy that no one goes there anymore.”

[laughter]

Clay: That’s– I think what you need to hear. All the Yogi Berra wisdom out there.

Dr. Zoellner: I feel better. See? And that’s what you do. When you’re down, you find a clown.

Clay: Oh, when you’re down, you find a clown. thrivetimeshow.com.

[background music]

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[background music]

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

Clay: Alright. Welcome back Tulsa. It’s the Thrive Time Show business school without the BS and yes my name is Captain Clay Tiberius Clark and I’m going to help you navigate the tricky waters of entrepreneurship, and we are broadcasting from the left coast of the beautiful and always flowing Arkansas River. I’m joined here inside the box that rocks, with a man who has gone from optometry dreams to entrepreneurial dreams. Tonight, we sort of like the Zorro of Tulsa. Putting the Z all over the city. It’s Dr. Robert Zoellner.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes. Hello, Thrivers. Thrive nation, good day. I hope you’re enjoying your lunch. I hope you’re enjoying the show and I hope you’re getting practical business tip to encourage you to start and to grow your business. It’s still appropriate in this first week of the year to say, “Happy new year. Happy first Thursday”.

Clay: Happy new year. Happy.

Dr. Zoellner: Happy. Happy. Happiness.

Clay: You know, what made me even happier today. It’s been a happy year so far but what made me happy really just in the last couple hours here. We have inside the box that rocks, we’ve a first-time guest.

Clay: First time guest.

Clay: We have a guy who, if you go to www.thrivetimeshow.com. If you go to www.thrivetimeshow.com, as so many people are doing, and you go up there and you sign up for the two-day interactive workshop. Unfortunately, we don’t have an unlimited number of seats. It’s kind of a smaller intimate setting but when you come to these workshops, the man who has designed what we called the SEO manifesto. The search engine optimization system that we teach people. The proven system that helps the David’s of the marketplace beat the Goliath’s of the marketplace.

Unless you’re trying to be Dr. Roberts Zoellner and Associate’s. In which case, we hope that you lose. If you’re trying to be Open Room. We hope that you lose. But no, but seriously-

Dr.Z: [laughs] He’ll crush you.

Clay: The thing is, he is the guy who’s built those online marketing systems. It’s in the box that rocks, Mr. Jonathan Kelly. Sir, how are you?

Jonathan Kelly: If I were doing any better. Vitamins will be taking me.

Clay: Oh, vitamins will be taking you. Very nutritious of you. Very nutritious. Now here’s the deal. Here’s the scenario. Here’s the scenario. I’m listening right now and I will have a sandwich dream. I want to build a sandwich shop. I have a product that people love and I’ve actually started to sell some stuff. A little bit of stuff but now I’m trying to get my quality perfected so that I can self-actualize. I want to take tennis lessons. I’m 44, and I want to do a full-time tennis lessons and vocal lessons. I don’t have time for that because I’m working all the time.

Dr. Zoellner: You want to be a singing tennis player.

Clay: I want to do tennis. I want to singing. I want to spend some time with my kids. I want to get some free time. Some financial freedom and some time freedom. I’m struggling because I’m competing right next to a huge sandwich shop.

Dr. Zoellner: Oh my goodness. How can you– you can’t– what were you thinking?

Clay: It’s a David-and-Goliath scenario.

Dr. Zoellner: It’s a David-and-Goliath scenario.

Clay: John, I want to ask you this. What would be- it’s kind of that M&M moment that kind of lose yourself moment. Where it’s you versus the other guys. You’ve got a very limited budget and you’re going, “I just watched 8 mile. I just watched Rocky VI. I just watched Gladiator. I’ve watched every motivational movie there was. I watched a marathon all night on Netflix. Just watched them all.

Dr. Zoellner: You got to get Braveheart in there. You can’t-

Clay: I got Braveheart.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes, you going to need Braveheart man.

Clay: And I’m pumped. I watched Rouge I twice. I am pumped up. I’m motivated. I’ve walked on hot coals man. I’ve been taking energy drinks. I’ve been taking steroids. I am pumped up. I couldn’t get more pumped Dr. Z.

Dr. Zoellner: I can tell. You are fired up man.

Clay: But how do I actually take on Goliath there, John? How do you do it? Give me some advice.

Jonathan: Well, first of all, if you are a sandwich, Clay, you would be a grinder.

[laughter]

Jonathan: But honestly, the secret to David and Goliath is not so much a secret, it’s diligence. It’s just showing up every single day, and carrying out the systems and the checklist that you’ve already set aside.

Clay: That’s amusing. Your talking about diligence?

Jonathan: Yes, so you’ve already set aside these things, this purple cow. These things that already separate you from other businesses. Right? Now, you just have to deliver on those promises.

Clay: But I got bored.

Jonathan: Well.

Clay: So, Z. [unintelligible 01:06:40] I’m just saying though, for somebody’s listening right now who goes, “I just get distracted. I have a hard time sitting down and blocking out time. I feel a little bit overwhelmed. I fix — insert reason for not doing what they know they need to do”. Once they’ve learned what they need to do, give me that encouragement. That mentorship, that potentially non-fatal punch to the cranium.

Dr. Zoellner: [laughs] Put you’re right to the duodenum, to small intestine. Bam, right there. I tell you what-

[bells ringing]

Clay: Somebody just sold something and everybody like, “Wow.” [crosstalk]

Dr. Zoellner: That’s what you need right now. Something just– we just sold something. Probably some bagels or what did they sell you, Clay?

Clay: Oswald’s bagels.

Dr. Zoellner: Oswald’s bagels.

Clay: Let Oswald, let me get that phone. That’s me. It’s my bagel shop. I answer every phone call. What are you doing young man? What are you doing?

Dr. Zoellner: [laughs] Hey listen, if you’re listening out there. You’ve just started your business. You’re thinking about starting your business. You’re going to come to our in-person workshop, January 20th and 21st to get coached up to start your business. I want to just short track this for you. I’m just going to take you to the finish line right now. Just get your head wrapped around this, you are David. Trust me there is a Goliath out there waiting for you.

I’m telling you up folks there’s not a business you can come up with that there’s not already somebody out there doing it. There’s not somebody out there that’s already grown it. There’s not somebody out there already crushing it in there. You know, when I came to Tulsa and I was going to open up an optometry clinic, there was not a hundreds and thousands of people walking around Tulsa going, “Gosh, if I could only see. If we just had another optometrist in town. If it isn’t one more optical store, my kids could see and then they can learn at school. But we’re just so short-handed in that area”.

Clay: It was war.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes, I mean with Sam Walton opening up his deal, it wasn’t because people couldn’t find goods, and you know when baking goods and dry goods and you know. [crosstalk]

Clay: There is no place to buy anything.

Dr. Zoellner: There’s no place to buy [laughs]

Clay: I would give all my money to whoever made the first thing that I– everybody opened a store that we’re just gonna sell some things, I would immediately go there. No, when you had it, Z, you had to get motivated, man.

Dr. Zoellner: You had to get motivated folks. I’ll tell you what, nobody’s going to as motivated as you are and if you’re not motivated all the way, guess what? It’s going be taken away. Goliath is going to walk into your little camp and just grab all your stuff. Slap you around, and walk out and you’ll be laying there naked like you were–

Clay: But I grew up poor. But I grew up poor.

Dr. Zoellner: And that’s never good to business folks because we don’t want to be poor anymore. Right?

Clay: We don’t have any connections.

Dr. Zoellner: That we got to pull it up by the shoe strings. We got to get up every day which you got to say listen, “I’m not feeling well today. I still going to go and punch it in”. You know what, you don’t have the luxury when you’re starting out your business and say, “You know what, I don’t feel like it”. Guess what? You didn’t sign up for that. This isn’t about what you feel. This is about what you know to do. What you’ve trained yourself to do. Your checklist that you’ve gone through. The stuff we’ve talked throughout. 13-point check list. You’ve come to in-person workshop. You know what to do now and now it’s about doing it. There’s a bridge in life.

Clay: Okay, there’s a bridge.

Dr. Zoellner: There’s a bridge. On one side is what, Clay?

Clay: Freedom.

Dr. Zoellner: And the other side is what?

Clay: Your goals. I the freedom to choose what I want to do and over here are my goals. I got it cause you know–

Dr. Zoellner: And what name are we going to give to that bridge? How do we go from over here, the goals to get to our– [crosstalk]

Clay: The big idea, execution.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes.

Clay: The discipline.

Dr. Zoellner: Discipline.

Clay: You mean to go from my goals to execution- you mean I’m wearing assurances, freedom, discipline. You see that right there?

Dr. Zoellner: Yes.

Clay: You got to have that discipline and discipline doesn’t feel good. I’m going to tell you what. If you want to go back in the day– John, I was just talking about this off the air this morning. I was going, “Hey. There’s a lot of you that have taken three weeks off who can’t afford to.” They took three weeks off. They haven’t built a big business yet. They’re taking three weeks off for the holidays.

Do you know what would happen back in the day of the pilgrims or back in the agricultural society where people were growing crops or raising animals and food to feed themselves? They would wake up dead. They wouldn’t do their job for three weeks?

Dr. Zoellner: It was serious. They had to be the pig at breakfast otherwise they literary became the pig at breakfast.

Clay: When we come back, John has to move on. He’s going to be working with some in-person workshops right here. We have a few that are flying in early. He’s working with them directly today. He’s going to be piecing out from the Box That Rocks. When we come back, we’re going to get in to how to make a One-Sheet, which is a One-Sheet, is how you clearly define you versus the other guys. That’s eight and a half by 11 print piece.

It’s a game-changer, and it forces you to clarify and boil down your ideas to the most simplistic way to describe things. It’s called an Elevator Pitch or a One-Sheet. Elevator Pitch? One-Sheet?

Dr. Zoellner: What item? We’ve got a confuser. Is it just like a blank sheet of paper? I don’t get it. That’s an elevator, which one is it?

Clay: I was distracted. I was going to ThriveTimeShow.com

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[music]

Voice over: Live. Local. Now, you’re listening to the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170.

Clay: Welcome Thrivers. Welcome Thrivers. Welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. We teach you how to build a thriving business, and I’m going to tell you why you’re listening today. You’re listening because you’re somebody who’s decided that this is going to be the best year of your life. You realize that you can survive, but you’ve decided that this is going to be the year that you are going to thrive.

You’re saying, “You know what? I am so tired of watching other people have success, and sitting back and watching it. I’m so tired of watching shows made about other people. I’m so tired about hearing of other people achieving their dreams and goals, and me I’m just watching my life go, go by.” You’re going, “This is the day that the Lord has made and I have decided that I am going to do something with it.” Until you’re going, “I’m looking for some practical trainings. That’s going to do it. I’m looking for some practical training.”

Dr. Zoellner: And you know what? You tuned in to the right show. Not only do we have the Thrive Time Show which comes to you every day, noon to 2:00 PM on Talk Radio 1170 right here where you’re listening to us, okay?

Clay: Yes.

Dr. Zoellner: Not only do we have that but then you can also if you want more.

Clay: I want more. I want more. I’m a greedy guy.

Dr. Zoellner: You can go to thrive15. Yes, that’s T-H-R-I-V-E-15.com. You can click on there and for a little measly amount, $19 a month, then you can bench watch, check out the Netflix of business schools. Business schools without the BS by the way. You can watch that and think, “I want more. I even want more than that.”

Clay: I do.

Dr. Zoellner: Yes. If you want more than that, guess what? Now we’ve started and we’ve been running in-person workshops. What does that mean? That means you can actually come to Tulsa or if you live in Tulsa, you can just come over here to the left coast of the Arkansas River, all right? and this big beautiful thrive15.com world headquarters and for two days-

Clay: Two days, 15 hours.

Dr. Zoellner: January 20th and the 21st, we are going to teach you our 13-step proven system. We’re going to teach you time management. We’re going to teach you customer service. We’re going to teach you everything you need to know to start and to grow that business, all right? and you might even say to yourself, “You know what? I just need just a little bit more.” What else do we have for them Clay?

Clay: Well, here’s the thing. When you come to the workshops, so many times on a practical level– someone’s talking about Search Engine Optimization, and maybe you’ve never optimized a site before. You’ve never actually pulled up the back end of a website and messed with it. So, you have a question and you’re like, “I just don’t know what to do. I didn’t quite understand it.”

What we do is we teach for 45 minutes, and then we break for 15 minutes, okay? We do that throughout the day and then at noon, I’m available to answer any business questions that you have. It’s an in-person experience and then other people they say, “You know what? I love what I learned today and I’d like to have more of that one-on-one mentorship on an on-going basis. I want someone who knows the way, who goes the way, who’s done it.”

I tell people it’s like, if Dr. Zoellner– if you knew that Dr. Zoellner had gotten to the top of the mountain that you want to get to, you look up and you say, “I want to go up to the top of that mountain.” He comes down and says, “Guys, it was hard doing it. We lost many people on the way-

[laughter]

Clay: – we went the wrong way, we went the wrong way there but here’s the deal. On the way back down, I marked the path and I know now what to do. I know how to get back up to the mountain and I know the path, I’ve marked it.

I’m telling you, I can 100% guarantee you I can get you up there. I’ve done it but whether you guys want to go or not I’m going back up there.” Now you see him up at the top of the mountain, and he’s up there celebrating. You’ve already seen him up there. He’s doing smoke signals, he’s got some sort of mountain camp going on.

Dr. Zoellner: Party. Party. Party.“ I’ll just finish up my New Year’s party up there.”

Clay: And you’re going, “How did he get there?” Well, when he comes back down about once a month, he comes back down and goes, “Hey guys. How are you guys doing?” You’re like, “Where were you? I was up there at the top of the mountain.” Eventually you’re like, “Well, I want to do that.” So, now you get to follow him. That’s what mentorship is. It’s learning from mentors or mistakes. Z?

Dr. Zoellner: Absolutely. We choose to try to do mentoring instead of mistakes with you guys, okay? We’re going to share our mistakes, our bone head moves we’ve done. We’ve done plenty and they’re kind of fun when we talk about– I love some of your bone head by the way.

Clay: I have one there right now that’s real hot. This is a hot one. It’s pretty new and pretty fresh. I feel pretty good about it.

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Clay: So, here’s the thing we do. About– probably about three years ago, my brother in law, he owns– we started Elephant in the Room Men’s Grooming Lounge together.

Dr. Zoellner: All right. Okay.

Clay: Elephant in the Room-

Dr. Zoellner: Wait, wait. You’re saying that men were unable to get haircuts in Tulsa?

Clay: We hear there was actually nobody filling that niche. There was nobody cutting hair. Men looked like yetis all over tulsa. You probably remember the dark ages of hair. Everyone had mullets then.

Dr. Zoellner: That’s why. Okay.

Clay: That’s why we started.

Dr. Zoellner: I was wondering why. Okay.

Clay: The market was under served, sports clips hadn’t gotten here yet, super cuts. It was a vast wasteland of men’s hair.

Dr. Zoellner: Now, there were a lot of goliaths around.

Clay: There was.

Dr. Zoellner: There were a lot of them.

Clay: So, we move into the marketplace and that time, we knew that we were going to offer Edison Bulbs, a historic burn wood, a modern rustic décor, paraffin hand dips, an adult beverage of choice. We’re going to offer straight razor shaves. It’s going to be like the ultimate men barber shop. It’s going to be like a country club for men’s hair. We knew that.

People were coming in and one thing my brother in law notices and I notice is, a lot of guys who came in are men who want to look their best. A lot of professionals coming in there. So, with the way it’d work is their first haircut it’s a dollar, and then after that we have the membership program. We thought, “Well, you know what? These guys are coming in.” and a lot of the guys– I’m not kidding. Probably one or two guys a day would ask, “Hey. Do you guys do have a good place to get your shoes shined?” So, I’m thinking, “Maybe that’s the thing.”

Dr. Zoellner: Sure.

Clay: What we did is, I literally– there’s a guy, you probably know who he is. He owns, I think of the shoe bus. Have you heard of the shoe bus guy?

Dr. Zoellner: I’ve not heard of the shoe bus guy.

Clay: [laughs] You’ve never heard about this guy?

Dr. Zoellner: Tell me about the shoe bus guy.

Clay: It was the guy who calls himself the shoe bus guy. He’s out there in Broken Arrow, and he goes to these outlet malls and he buys all of the inventory of Joseph A. Banks or the Johnston & Murphy brand or the [unintelligible 01:18:47] all these different companies, and he buys all the shoes. I bought at one– I’m not kidding, I bought at one purchase of about $20,000 of men’s shoes.

Dr. Zoellner: What?

Clay: [laughs] I bought about 3,000 pairs of shoes because we had a lot of guys asking for, “Where do you recommend I go to get my shoes?” We brought them into the store and we began to sell the shoes, and we sold out all of the shoes. The problem is we realized quickly, “We’re not a shoe business.”

Dr. Zoellner: “We’re not a shoe business.”

Clay: We’ve got to stock them. We’ve got to sort them. people wanted to try them on and then people wanted us to shine them like, “Absolutely, we’d shine them.” Think about the logistics, you’re coming in for a haircut-

Dr. Zoellner: Okay. I’m coming in to-

Clay: – and you’re dropping off your shoes to be shined. You’re going to come back tomorrow, the next day and now you’re going to have somebody whose full time job is to shine your shoes, sort your shoes. Then after a couple of days we had like hundreds of people getting their shoes shined, and we’re going, “I wonder if those are Dr. Z’s shoes or Sam’s shoes?

Dr. Zoellner: Yes. Whose-

Clay: – Maybe he’ll know the difference.” So, the guys are coming in not knowing the difference at sight and it got a little crazy. We were like, “Okay. We tested it in one store, we’re not getting into the shoe business. We’re going to focus– Even though men were asking for it, we’re not going to shine shoes moving forward. We’re just not going to do it. We’re not going to sell shoes or shine-“

Dr. Zoellner: So, you turned business away? You said, “You know what? You want to give me money, you want me to

do the service and I’m going to tell you, “No” because that’s just crazy.”

Clay: Yes, because the things was we realized again, there was a little a pyramid down at the bottom, we start with the product, then we go to market, then we go to sales–

Dr. Zoellner: You’re back to your pyramid.

Clay: We do some sales and then we go to get the feedback. Once you get the feedback, once you get it right then you can move up to the top. Which is self actualization, meaning you can be the best you that you can be. Before you can do any of those things. You got to ask yourself, how are you different than the competition? I have a check list here Z.

Dr. Zoellner: Hold on one second, because this a big concept. I think a lot of business beginners lose focus of and that is their focus. In other words, you pick your team and you stick with it. You pick your item just like you did, men’s grooming. All right that’s what were going with.

If you’d added all these other things to it you wouldn’t been excellent, and your focus would have been of men’s grooming and then you would have been this Hodge podge of whatever it was.

Clay: Men’s grooming and dog food. We do both, we do them-

Dr. Zoellner: Because we’ve figured out most men actually have a dog. They were asking if we could sell dog food.

Clay: I like bagels. Which is why Oswald’s Bagels is moving as a partnership.

Dr. Zoellner: If they ask for it then my gosh we have to give it to them-

Clay: Absolutely.

Dr. Zoellner: That’s the kind of business man I am.

Clay: Customer is always right even when they want dog food at the hair place.

Dr. Zoellner: That’s right because they want to save a spot to Southern Ag on the way home.

Clay: Now here’s the ideal, I’m going to tell you this. We’re trying to save you a trip to Southern Ag by educating you because I’m telling you this, if you don’t start to sell something with your business, you’re going to find yourself eating dog food. Walt Disney, he ate dog food at the low point of his career. He was eating dog food, true story. Look that up.

Dr. Zoellner: Well, apparently you will survive.

Clay: You can survive. Now Thrivers, when we come back we’re going to get into the final steps of how to differentiate yourself in a crowded market place. thrivetimeshow.com

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

Clay: All right Thrive nation. Welcome back into the conversation about how to market your business all across this nation. Knock-knock at the door, who is it? Who is it? It’s the exquisite, the wonderful the man, the myth, the legend Mr. Tim Redmond is back Inside the box that rocks.

Tim: Oh my gosh. I’ve been invited by these two stud muffins this is awesome.

Dr. Zoellner: Stud muffins? I thought he was a stud bagel.

Clay: I got you bagels. Oswald’s Bagels, I’m the only one that does it right. I swear, I’ve been yelling it into a mega phone for years that’s my primary form of marketing.

Tim: It’s the non-Jewish style, okay? What can I say?

Clay: Unbelievable.

Dr. Zoellner: Every now and then in life you see a unicorn and you think, “Wow. I want a unicorn.” Then every now and then you capture a unicorn.

Clay: Bring it in.

Dr. Zoellner: Bring it in to the box that rocks and that’s what we just did. I saw him earlier he snuck by. He’s here at Thrive 15 headquarters probably lecturing or pontificating or-

Clay: We are working with clients. We are doing calisthenics getting this businesses in shape.

Dr. Zoellner: That’s what I’m saying. So he walks and I go, “Oh my gosh, there’s a unicorn, there’s Tim Redmond of the Redmond famed unicorn cabinet.”

Clay: He’s booked hour after hour with business coaching so it’s rare that you get a chance to talk to the guy in-person. Tim, what’s your website for people that don’t know who you are where can they find more information about you?

Tim: Timisastudmuffin.com, no.

Clay: No, don’t go to that website that’s not a site

[laughter]

Dr. Zoellner: Not a site.

Clay: No.

Dr. Zoellner: That’s not been approved.

Tim: Actually, it’s not. It’s redmondgrowth.com.

Clay: redmondgrowth.com I’m going to brag on Tim. Tim was a member of a team that they grew a business from two people to over 450 people before they sold that thing to Turbo Tax.

Dr. Zoellner: True Story.

Clay: 450 people you go from two people to 450, you’re doing something right. One of the things they did right was marketing. Differentiating themselves in a crowded market place.

Dr. Zoellner: Rumor has it that you got a job there and that you squirreled your way in. That you really did not have the qualifications. You really shouldn’t have been there. I got a question did Tim actually interview you. He was a high up-

Clay: No, he was high-up, he was at the top.

Robert: He was up to the top. He was the tower.

Clay: Here’s the deal-

Dr. Zoellner: I’d be looking around at minions, “Doing this, looking down.”

Clay: To make a short story long, Thrivers okay? Here’s what happened is, I am over there at Target. I’m just reading some Napoleon Hill and I’m learning about over delivering for the first time. Where you’re suppose exceed the expectations of every person you come in contact with. I’m like the electronics guy.

Some guys are coming in and asking Michael Bolton Holiday Albums and what’s a good tape recorder, what’s a good camera, what’s a good. One guy, Todd Starkey walks in and he says, “Hey I’m looking for a video camera for my wife. Can you point me in the right direction?” I walk over there and I had been studying all the model numbers. I knew everything about these cameras.

I said, “Hey, based on your needs, you want this camera and not this camera.” I’ll never forget he looks at me and he goes, “Why?” I go, “Well you can save your money and it’s more efficient for your needs. You don’t need all these other features. It will be better for your family.” He goes, “How come you know all this?” I’m like, “I’ve been reading all the manuals.” He’s like, “Why?” I was like, “I’m trying to over deliver. I’m reading this book thing [unintelligible 01:25:45] started.”

Dr. Zoellner: What if you had sent him to the hot pretzels over here in the other segment of the store.

Clay: That was right before, this is right after I made the change. I used to be the pretzel eater guy who was absent minded at work. He goes, “Well you know we’re hiring.” I said, “What are you hiring?” “We’re hiring interns. You don’t happen to, you’re not studying accounting in college are you?” I’m like, “Yes I am.”

Dr. Zoellner: Yes. I just happen to be.

Tim: I’ve heard of that word, I think is really the reality of it.

Clay: Yes. I find myself booked an interview and there for interviews to weasel my way in. Next thing I know, I’m there working full-time at tax and accounting software. Where Tim is the man working in the ivory tower of power. My direct boss was Todd Starkey and I think Steve Heck was my super, super boss.

Tim: Yes, Todd Starkey he is the customer service legend. He had a guy, talking about marketing, you market through the stories of delivery of service. Todd Starkey had a guy that would not be satisfied unless he came up to meet him, to talk to him at midnight. He snuck in, Todd snuck in, served this guy at midnight and made him a client for life.

Clay: Really? Todd Starkey is a legend of customer service.

Tim: He was a stud muffin, still is.

Dr. Zoellner: That’s like that commercial on television now it’s like, “What was he wearing?” “I think khakis.” “Well she sounds horrible.” “He’s a dude.”

It’s two in the morning answering the phone, same thing your Starkey story, customer service, Starkey story.

Clay: Now, I going to tell you this Thrivers. Here’s the deal, we’re talking about how differentiate your business. We’re talking about how to make a one sheet, okay. Here’s what you do one side, you make three columns as a preferred method. A lot of times this will be two-

Dr. Zoellner: Wait, hold on. Let me get out my sheet of paper here. Come on.

Clay: You have three columns, okay? On the left column, you put your business.

Dr. Zoellner: My business.

Clay: In the middle column, you put the other guys.

Dr. Zoellner: Other guys.

Clay: The far right column, you put the other, other guys.

Dr. Zoellner: The other, other guys, okay.

Clay: For the best example, if you go into Google right now and you type in transfarency southwest and then click on Google images. Click on Google Search, type in transfarency images there, southwest. You’ll see Southwest Airlines is comparing themselves right now to American, Delta and United. They are showing straight up how they compete in every area.

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

Clay: The three areas you want to compete on are price, product and people.

Dr. Zoellner: Price, product, why do those all three start with P.

Clay: Well it was going to be Paul, and Kevin and Arnold but we had to change it to make the three P work.

Dr. Zoellner: Very good.

Clay: Here’s the thing the price, people and products. How’s your product different? How is your pricing different? How are your people or your customer service different? Tim I want to ask you over tax and accounting. Tax and accounting software back in the day when your office there from the city plex tower near ORU. What made your product different from the other guys?

Tim: We were the first in the industry to invent a repackaging of everything we offered. All in one package-

Clay: One package.

Tim: It wasn’t 20 decisions. It wasn’t 50 decisions. It was one simple decision. The less decisions you can get somebody to make, the easier it is to sell them.

Clay: Now Z, I want to ask you, once you begin to differentiate yourself, you’ve got to move into this final move. Which you’ve got to make a no-brainer offer. You’ve got to have an offer where if someone who is skeptical goes, “You know what, I’ll go ahead and give a whirl.”

Dr. Zoellner: Absolutely, if you’re called to action. In other words, you’re out there spending your money, your advertising, you’re getting your message out there. Now you’ve developed your message, you’ve developed your logo. We’ve already worked on all that. If you’ve missed some of those shows thrivetimeshow.com you can check them out.

You can go to thrive15.com you can come to our in-person workshop January 20 – 21st. You can get one-on-one business go coaching. We’re there now your spending your hard earned money and if you don’t make them an offer that is so compelling that they just have to go, “If I don’t get in there today. I might die.” kind of offer then you’re wasting some of your money.

Tim: I love it.

Clay: Here’s an example of a no-brainer offer with music. I want everyone, if you’re listening right now, I want you to go ahead and get a sheet of paper and write down where you were when this song came out. Because I want you to email me [email protected] where you were.

When this song — what age were you?

Dr. Zoellner: DJ Clay.

Clay: Here we go. Here we go.

[music]

Clay: Do you remember this crazy song? Remember how you couldn’t resist it?

Dr. Zoellner: You couldn’t touch it?

Clay: You had the hammer pants on and everybody, everyone. It was hammer time.

Dr. Zoellner: It was always hammer time.

Clay: Backpacks. Remember backpacks? Hammer time backpacks.

Dr. Zoellner: The little shuffle.

Clay: You had buttons. He was on TV. He was on the radio. He couldn’t get away from the guy. He was everywhere. It was like you couldn’t escape the gravitational pull of MC Hammer. He was a no-brainer.

Dr. Zoellner: It was hammer time baby.

Clay: The song, if you listen to it, was also a no-brainer. There was probably no brain involved in making that song, but they just took a Rick James song, and redid it and now all of sudden it was like, there it is.

Dr. Zoellner: He found a parade. He got in front of it and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Clay: Listen to the lyrical. [music] Oh wow. He’s like a modern philosopher.

Dr. Zoellner: It’s deep. It’s very, very deep.

Clay: Here we go we’re almost — Here were go. Everyone with me. You can’t touch it. It was so good. It was so good.

Now Thrivers, listen to this. If you’re saying, “I do want to make a no-brainer. I do want to differentiate my business. I do want to sell something. I realize that I am not in business until I sell something and I’ve just been held accountable by myself. I realize I need to learn to sell something. I need to learn to market. I need to learn customer service. I need to learn leadership.”

Dr. Zoellner where should they go? What do they need to do right now?

Dr. Zoellner: I tell you what. You might still be confused by the term purple cow. You may be sitting there eating your Oklahoma Joe’s, burnt ends, baked beans and going, [unintelligible 01:31:33] purple cow. [laughs]

Clay: There was a great Prince song, purple cow?

Dr. Zoellner: I think it was purple rain.

Clay and Dr. Zoellner: [sings] Purple cow. Purple cow.

Dr. Zoellner: If you’re saying – listen, I need to break it down. You lost me on purple cow. Listen folks, we break it down for you. With our in-person workshop you’re going to have 15 hours of excellence. We’re going to teach you all the moves to do.

Clay: All the moves.

Dr. Zoellner: January 20 and 21st go to thrivetimeshow.com. Click on the button that says, “Tell me more about the workshop.” Click and then it has all the details. All the information you need. If you can come up with some random question, we didn’t ask that you can email us or you can even call us. We actually have people answering the phones.

Clay: It’s crazy. Here’s what else Thrivers that’s amazing is that when you come to the workshop, some of you are going to go, “I want to come out next month.” We have ongoing workshops but the thing is, this workshop here, the two day is so intense. It’s two days. It’s intensive.

We get into all — we dig down deep into all the issues. If you go to thrivetimeshow.com you can see the agenda. We teach time management. We’re going to teach accounting, personal finances. It’s all there. If you want one-on-one coaching, we can do that too. For $19 a month, just $19 a month, they have access to what?

Dr. Zoellner: They have access to all the business mentoring and coaching you could ever want. We’ve done the hard work. We’ve gone around the country. We have gotten the best and the brightest minds in all of the different categories of business that we train on. Then we film them and we’ve made it fun. Yes, we like to have a little fun.

Clay: I don’t want to have fun. I like to be serious all the time Dr. Z.

Dr. Zoellner: We’ve made it affordable, $19 a month. We even have scholarships on top of that if you say, “I can’t even afford that.” We even got scholarships on top that. When you get one, we’re going to give a free one to military personnel. Thrive15.com Business school in your pocket. Whip it out whenever you want. Bam, bam, bam.

Clay: It’s business school without the BS. I’m telling you what Thrivers, you are going to want to join us at the two day, 15 hours of power thrivetimeshow.com workshop. Z, as always.

Clay and Dr. Zoellner: Three, two, one. Boom!

[01:33:39] [END OF AUDIO]