This is part 4 of the business coach transcripts. To start at the beginning and read from there, click here.
No this is not heaven but this is the business coach Thrive time show on your radio and we are a show that provides business school without the b.s.. And Yes. My name is Clay Clark and the former SBA Entrepreneur of the year. And yes I’m excited to be here with you because this is our mission. This is why we’re here. I personally know that the reason why we’re together at this time on the radio is because you are looking to do more with your life. You’re a business coach or a business owner looking to expand your financial freedom and your time freedom and you’re looking for a show that can help you do that and this is the show so you could be listening to talks about Donald Trump’s impeachment. Right you could be talking about shows talking about building a wall you could be talking about North Korean build. You know he would talk about who’s going to be the head of the FBI I don’t know who’s going to. But the thing is is that you can’t control that in today’s show the entire show every show is focused on things that you can control. Steve Currington you are now the top mortgage man and Tull’s your top in Google. That’s right. You’re selling many many mortgages some could say they sell more some because it is less. But the thing is you’re do it you’re doing it. I do it cooler even if they do more Tulsa mortgages they’re going to find you are living that dream you’re driving the Lamborghini people high five you. It’s a great thing.
So I want to ask you this for someone listening who focuses exclusively when they look at their wallet look at their bank account and look at whatever financial indicator there is. And they say to themselves I’m not successful because the big three the economy really the economy or Oh it’s it’s a religious thing it’s as you know God’s not blessing me it’s the economy his religion or or or it’s some sort of like thing we can’t control. What tip would you give. We we believe God can help people we believe. Great politicians can help things. Who would but what advice would you say to somebody who says I’m not successful because it’s something I can’t control what would you say.
You have to grind. You’re not working hard enough. I wrote a book. Grant Cardone wrote this book called Be obsessed or be average. Come on. Preach it. It’s a good business coach book. But you know what he says and there’s people just give up too early. I’m not taking the mike back to you preach the Good News.
I’m just saying like people just give their like of work hard for the last 37 minutes. And it’s like dude you did.. business coach Clay Clark didn’t start from the bottom and now he’s here like six days ago and get a radio show and kick you. That didn’t happen. What is it that you did and how many years that you did it says this by the way in the Thrive restroom if you’re not ready. Deposit all your dreams here. If you’re not ready to work for 80 hours a week five years with no choice is right over the right over the Ertl.
Well here’s an example set. Here’s an example. My favorite elephant in the room is our men’s lounge and that company pays me more passive more more money passively than you know than most doctors make actively. And how does that happen. Well I’ll tell you what. We put a ton of money and do it every week or write and checks. We try to stay lean. Every week we’re writing checks for ads and for the Web site and for training people are put in time and we’re getting to the top of Google we’re grinding we’re working hard right in content we’re doing all that we’re refining the system people came in they were not happy with the experience we would learn from these complaints. People come and say hey there’s the overhead music or like oh my gosh we should get some more people to you know to get our kirk Fryar for listening. I’m so sorry about that our haircut but I always take an hour for my dad one time in the living room my dad my own father says to me he says Son it takes too long. I said to how long does it take this is what ticks it takes. No but over an hour and I don’t have an hour available my life for a haircut I’m not going to do it. And over the complaints would come in the issues would stack up. The record wasn’t where it needed to be. The playlist wasn’t where it had to be. The experience was but we listened to the complaints.
And over and over we took the complaints and we used them to improve. And we did it and did it and now you’re too. We posted pretty good profit your three things are growing your for now in the process of franchising. And I’m just telling you right now if you’re listening I know that you have what it takes to be successful. Tim if someone’s listening and they go I can’t be successful right now because of the president. Now when you built tax and accounting software What year did you guys start that business. Approximately what year was that.
I joined them in 96. The founder had started a couple of years before that 86.
So we were Reagan years right because Reagan down 88 we were about $100000 strong on an annual basis in 86. OK. So from eight Reagan was the president. But there’s people who have had success in the Clinton years in the Bush years in the Obama years. And what would you say to someone listening who says I can’t have success because the president the laws right now the regulation. What do you say.
I would say memorize this one line. OK here we go. If it’s to be it’s up to little ole business coach me.
Repeat that again.
If it’s up to me it has to be a the right. Well like well here go for it. I. Nothing like me it’s up to me. That’s the deal huh.
So you just have to own your stuff. There’s a better word for it in that I would say those things on your thing.
So here we go something else. Number three you want to learn from complaints. Steve Jobs was big into learning from customers. His competitor Bill Gates with Microsoft is famous for this but he says Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. Now I just told you thrive are we to thrive. We had a thriving just like you’ve got there right now who actually was one of our early early members to the elephant in the room. Men’s Grooming Lounge. If you’re listening right now and you know the guy when you shoot him a text but Kirk Fryar He’s the district manager for District 10 for Farmers Insurance and a great business coach client. Give him a call , I know this because I’ve trained their agents for nine years. He’s a great guy but this is the deal. He would come in for the haircut and he would say you know it’s taken too long.
Right now I could justify but instead I encourage all the drivers to write this down. When you seek criticism and not praise you will always make a raise when you seek criticism and not praise. You always make a raise. So when you want to jump in to the feedback and say What can I do to better serve you and he said you know the other took too long and I said well what else. The overhead music took too long. What else. The suit Steve. How have you what is it that you’ve learned about the mortgage process. Because now you have a very fast process. People looking for a faster mortgage looking for a low rate people are looking for the right systems they’re going to go to Steve current income. That’s right. Hundreds of Tulsans do it per year. They go up to Steve Currington Tulls duck on thousands of people in fact do they go out to Steve current income because they understand they get a fast mortgage. The word of mouth is crazy it’s through the roof at this point it’s like a it’s like a exponential growth. But how have you learned from the customers what have you learned from them to make your company better.
People don’t like stress right especially when they’re moving and people don’t like surprises at the closing time hey we’re going to close.
This happened to me this has happened to me in a closing years ago. How do you do about a house 90 first and Lynn lane many of you have seen this. Eighty nine hundred South is a picture of it right here on the left is on the wall in this primary.
The closeness person says to me Hey I just want you know it’s going to be a little more than what you expected now. Are our mortgage professional was awesome but the title company is trying to throw in that mess just a little bit more you know and the house is big you know 660000 you know the title work took a little more and you’re going out and they just play that game.
Yeah. Steve why don’t people like having surprises in change. What’s wrong with us.
Well you know people make plans when they’re moving. You know they get the mover they got the kids changing schools they got things going on and you can’t willy nilly that process which is part of why I get a lot of flack in the industry because I have certain partners that I work with all the time. Like for Title. Everyone knows that so it’s no surprise I used allegiance title I have a bunch of people they go there’s some deal. Now here’s what the deal is. I know what to expect. I have the expectation of how things are going to go for me and my clients and that’s is a perfect example of that. And so for us we want to control every aspect of the process from the appraisal on who the appraiser is and who is on our panel all the way to title to the attorney that treating it to the person who’s closing it because we don’t want surprises because with surprises comes pain and then comes complaints and we only learn that play by getting complaints you get punched in the face by the clients literally. Now literally I’ve never been punched in the face of my club yet but I’m working on it now.
Tim we come back from the break. Well first up before we go to the break I encourage everybody listening right now I encourage you to do two things during the break one. Get up there and go to Oklahoma JONES I mean there’s multiple locations and you know you feel a burning desire for those burnt ends and baked beans. Unless you’re my wife. I mean she doesn’t like him. She want a wife will not eat any meat.
I’m like eat some meat now I won’t eat meat. And the thing is because she knows how much I love the meat. You know I mean she’s basically kind of try to meet our family because she knows people want what they can’t have. So I find myself now looking at people going he looks edible.
I mean I love meat. Is this what does it encourage you to go up though to Oklahoma Joe’s who we love up here with a business coach team. Check them out go on their web site visit the store go in there check it out. So good thing I encourage you to go through time. Show dot.com and book your tickets for our next in person workshop. Junes already sold out so good. Do yourself a favor. Book your tickets for July business coach. But we come back. Tim Redmond is going to be educating us about how they were able to scale a business from two employees to 450 employees simply by learning from the customers to make a great customer service experience.