Regifting the October 2019 Conference Audio | The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Audio Transcription

At the height of his living. Where do you think you’re going to put a tree that bend over? And I’ll show you. I’ve got a lot of nerve talking to me. I wasn’t talking to you, Jason. Here we are in the Christmas edition of the thrive time show, broadcast and podcast. Now on today’s show, we’re gonna be breaking down some audio from a recent business conference. Okay. And that way the listeners can S it’s going to experience as our gift to them. What it’s like to attend an in-person thrive time show business conference. Does it does, does that sound fair to you? That sounds very fair. I’ve had a lot of attorneys that make me feel retarded and I already feel that way anyway. When you take your act three times, you kinda wonder. But West is really good about cutting through the legal BS.

And so we’re going to do is we’re going to answer all the questions on the board and a West is going to answer some almond answer some and then you can ask him anything. And normally a good attorney charges, you know, $300 an hour plus and he’s here and it’s free. So any legal questions you have at all, you can be writing them down, thinking about them. And I need Robert to be reading questions and then I think I’m passing Mike’s down. This Mike here I think is the Mike of great distance. And by the way, didn’t Robert do a great job? What’s here for Robert? Yeah, Robert

[Inaudible]

And Robert’s Lynn. Robert’s going to let people are you giving people rides in your Porsche later today? Is that what you’re doing? Possibly. Possibly. Possibly. Okay. Robert, let’s read the first question, please. Okay. As a one man business, how soon before needing a second person should I start the group interview?

Yes. Who asked that question? Yeah, start, start the interview before you need people and if you like them, put them on your a list and then hire when ready. You want to make the revenue dictate it and not the emotions. So I feel like as a one man person you’ll always feel like you need to hire one more person. But the co laws can tell you, you guys do a great job managing payroll. Employee costs tend to always go up and they always, people always say they need more help, more help, more help. But you might want to go to quick trip, you know, and check out that gas station and just see how busy those people are. Cause they always say they’re understaffed over there, but they are very profitable. It’s very fast, good service. But you’d want to make sure that you are bringing in enough revenue where it doesn’t put you in the homeless shelter to afford them. Does that make sense? And then West, when you hire your first employee, what sort of legal funk do we need to fill out?

Well, it’s a good question because not just from the revenue standpoint, but as soon as you get employees on staff now you have to have probably outsourcing payroll through an ADB, Paychex, that kind of stuff. Cause you’re going to have withholdings, you’re got to start making payments probably on a quarterly basis to the IRS, to worker’s compensation. You’re going to open up a Pandora’s box of other issues. So you can’t really dip your toe in the water once you get employees really have to do it correctly and set all those processes up from the very beginning. So one comment here, there’s a temptation sometimes to call them independent contractors and just pay them on a 10 99 instead of an employee that would get a W2. Contractors, you know, taking taxes out, it seems much simpler. 90% of the time those workers should be employees and there’s a lot of danger there and misclassifying those. So that’s just another landmine

And what’ll happen is, and just through the steps, just as if you’d hire somebody, if you hire your first person, what you’ll want to do is print out a list on eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper of what you expect them to do. Don’t have to make it super formal and legal, just the expectations are clear. Then you want to make sure they never go over 40 hours a week because of all the laws there. And you’re going to want to make sure that they fill out all the paperwork, yet you’re W2 or I nine and West can give you a list or we can give you a list for free. But what you do is when you hire somebody, you now are in a world where all of a sudden there’s a lot of litigious things. So like workman’s comp, you think you’re paying $10 an hour for an employee.

But after taxes and insurance, and I mean, Amber, what do you think? If you paying someone $10 an hour, it doesn’t end up being like 14 an hour. So Andrew, if you do the math, 14 times 4.3 there’s 4.3 weeks in a month, not four out for 4.3 it’s very important for accounting to know that 4.3 weeks in a month, 4.3 times 14 times 10 I was before we start 14 hour doors now. So 14 times, 4.3 times 40 so 14 times 4.3 okay. Do it. Do it again there. I’m sorry Andrea. 14 times 4.3 times 40 that’s what your a cost to hire someone for 10 an hour and it makes sense. So you’d be very careful cause you think it’s 10 an hour. So you’re like, Oh man, it’s only you know, 1600 a month. But it’s not cause it’s 4.3 weeks in a month, not four. And you gotta factor in those who’s discovered, it’s more than $10 an hour to pay someone $10 an hour. Oh Shunda Bernie Sanders. Back to you, Robert. All right, let’s do group interviews for 300

Still hold the group interview. Even if I’m not hiring for that position. Absolutely. And a M West, you manage a team of people just so we know. Winters and King is a big firm to winters and King and West is not a winters and he’s not a King. And I’ve been petitioning not verbally, just passively, aggressively for to be winners King. And where’s the Carta? Ooh, where’s the car? I want to put that on the side. But what’s your partner now? Yes. And you’ve been there how long? 12 years. And you now manage the staff, am I correct or managed? Yes. And so how often do you need a new team member? Whether it, because someone had a baby, someone’s moving on, somebody is retiring. It’s like once a year. Once every couple of months.

You know, it’s probably once every couple of months. But I think the trick is that a lot of times you get surprised. You don’t know that they’re, you’re going to need them until they walk in your office until you there.

Usually the rest of your staff knows first. When I say usually every time, so I’m having coffee and someone’s like, Oh man, it is unfortunate. They’re moving on. And I go, whew, whew, I can hell, whew. And they go, Oh, this person’s moving on. And you go, okay. And I always think who’s going with them? And it’s usually a three pack. So we three have decided to team up to do this. Aaron, can I get a witness? Shunda so it happens. So it’s really important. You never stop recruiting because winters and King, they have a very high standard and you can’t just put any rando off the street in that office. So I mean it’s, it’s, I mean, don’t you have kind of a hot list of people that you would love to hire whenever you have a shot?

Yeah, we have to keep a queue of people because I mean, not just quitting or, you know, someone wants to go be a stay at home mom, or I had one this year that one of my employee’s side to join the national guard. So they’re gone. And you have to hold that job open and under a lot of circumstances. So you have to fill that job on a temporary basis. So there’s all kinds of scenarios where this comes up.

And what will happen is, is if you think about this again, pick about again, and I know some of you hate the Patriots, but just move on for a second. Just recognize how correct I am in this and how wrong your team is. Okay. Think about this. So the Patriots, bill Belichick has always has a hot list of players he wants in the event that someone gets hurt. So they just signed this Asian kicker this morning who I’ve never heard of it, but apparently he’s great and it’s because our all pro kicker got hurt. But if you watch them this year, they have three of their linemen that are out and they don’t even care. Three starting lineman All-Pro lineman are gone. They just keep winning and it’s cause he’s always recruiting before he needs to on the Cowboys. And again, I grew up as a Cowboys fan. What do we do? We begged players to put, we beg them to come back and play. They already have a contract, but we have to beg them, please, please come back. And they hold out. We want him to come back. And we are held hostage every year and we’re like, Oh, I just need executive Elliot to come back. And if he does, but if he gets hurt, we’re screwed. And on the Patriots it’s more like we’re never done recruiting. We don’t care who you are.

What it really says about the Patriots to me is something that they’ve always said and it’s like, you know, what’s the best way, the Patriot way, cause the record speaks for itself to Bella chick way completely unsentimental. They’re like completely unsentimental. They evaluate you every week. It’s the reason that they say, well how are you going to beat the Patriots? I don’t know what Patriot’s team is going to show up. You know what the Patriots do? They are a different team every week.

So if you can decide, if you wanna be a proactive company or reactive, I would never stop recruiting. Even if you’re a one man band. Back to you. Robert, should you promote from within or a hire from an outside source for a manager? I would always promote from within, but I would like for West to explain why they made you a partner and how long it took to become a partner.

Well, I mean, when you’re promoting from within or you’re trying to climb up the ladder yourself, I mean, it really, it’s always going to come back down to productivity. Can they rely on you? Do they think you’re loyal? And you know, we’re, we’re all working on a bottom line, so the productivity portion of it. So I do agree that you should promote from within as much as possible with a caveat that don’t put someone in that’s not ready for that position just to promote from within. True.

So you wouldn’t want to promote someone to the level of incompetency because once you do that, then it causes resentment when they have to go back down. So we had somebody, I try to think of examples far in the past, so it’s you can’t guess years ago I’m talking about di DJ business. Okay, here we go. So one of the DJs was an awesome disc jockey and this is to be an awesome DJ. This is what that means is you say all ladies and gentlemen coming up in just a moment, we have the beautiful pride in the handsome groom will be coming in for the grand entrance and it is incumbent upon me as the DJ to take the party from a level five to level 10 because the bride has sent me an email, which I will read to you guys before they arrive.

Dear DJ, don’t make my wedding terrible or I’ll probably cry in my life will be ruined. Oh, that’s a pretty heavy letter. Just kidding folks. We gotta be excited when the bride comes in. So let’s go ahead and practice. We’re going to have the bride and the groom coming in just a minute. Go ahead and make some noise. Let’s hear it for the bride and the groom and people get excited and you got to hype the crowd up. And then when the bride comes in, ladies a Joel, it’s here for mr and Mrs. Smith. Everyone’s like, wow. And the bride says, you’re awesome, but you’re like a hype man. Your job is to hype it up high. Boop, boop. But then that guy said, I want to become a manager. And I’m like, okay cool. Well he’s in the office telling our sales guys, you’ve got to pump it up.

You got a puppet and you’re like, we don’t know what to say on the phone. You got up, you just gotta want it and you got to be it and we got to believe it and we got here. Stop quoting things that rhyme and give me a script. I don’t know where the script is, but I’m passionate. You guys want a red bowl? I’ve had a red bull so you don’t want the wrong person in the wrong. Does that make sense though? Now our, the guy ended up finding to be a great manager. If I ever asked him to DJ, you would be bored. Cause it would be ladies and gentlemen, I’m the bride and the groom or he’s a very measured man. Never gets up, never gets down. So we get the right person in the right seat. Does that make sense? Right person, right seat back to you Robert.

Why should I track my numbers if QuickBooks already generates reports for me

Because nobody looks at QuickBooks. Quickbooks should be renamed quick brokes cause what happens is, is QuickBooks, who’s ever looked at QuickBooks and seeing that you have this much money in the bank and then discovered you have this much money in the bank, it’s, you saw it this much, they have this much. Who’s ever had that QuickBooks epiphany? No, no, no. Okay. So every one of my clients ever, except for like the ones who already came to me as a very solid, grown big business when I, so I do, as I say, go ahead and get express a Excel sheet and type in all your expenses and all your income for the last 90 days. And usually they say, I don’t want to do it. I don’t want it. And I okay. Do 30 days and every time. Aaron antiques, what happens every time when we ask someone to enter in their income and expenses, you’ve, you’ve been around the game, you’ve seen entrepreneurs. What happens time?

There you go. Whenever you’re ready.

And they started to go, I thought I had this much money, but I have that much money. I, I don’t understand. Quickbooks said this and I would say garbage in, garbage out when doing coding and programming. And then Wes, what happens when a client comes to you and wants to file bankruptcy? How does that go over?

Well, you mean from a QuickBook standpoint?

When somebody gets to a place where they realize they don’t have any money left and they can’t pay debtors, what happens?

Well, I mean they’re, they’re broken and sad, feel guilty and shame for not being able to pay their debts. And I have to talk them off the ledge and explain how we’re going to get through this.

Do you three 62 hours of your business help to market or are they a waste of money? They help you grow your business? They do. They help you rank higher in Google. And if you click on thrive time show and jinx, you can see our three 60 tour and then you need to buy the thing called the Rico, not SUA Bay, but Rico feta camera, which is approved by Google and it does a three 60 tour of the building. If you click on the map and you just film it all yourself with the Ricoh theta camera, it’s 300 bucks. And then you get us the footage and the members of our team who are Google certified. Where’s Devin at? Where’s did he leave? Oh, Devin. Devin. You stitch those things together, don’t ya? Oh, come on up here. Devin. You beautiful man. You Stitcher of we’ll get it. Oh yeah, Devin. Oh yeah, yeah.

Whoa.

Now let me tell you how. Let me tell you how God made Devin. He stitched together two parts. Beauty, four parts, humble, six parts kind. How long have you been here, Devin? Five years. Let’s hear for Devin. Five years. And Devin, tell us how you put these together. Tell us how you put them together

Carefully. The camera. The camera actually does most of the work as far as taking the pictures and making them all panoramic and all that stuff. But it takes many, many hours to set it up so that you can walk around the actual space.

Let’s hear it for Devin and folks. Let’s Evernote. Yeah. Yeah. So, and what we find, how many of you looked at the three 60 map before buying a ticket or coming here? Did anybody do that? Do you do that? Oh, I’ve got a few. Okay. What happens is, why don’t people tell us before I’m thinking about coming to Tulsa, how many of you Googled the building or the area or anything before come? Anybody do that? Yeah, people were like tall SA. Is that a sod farm? And we’d go into, is this a sod farm? Are you taking me to a sod farm? You know, so we thought about moving it to Demoine though. I’m just kidding. All right, let’s come on. All right, clay, we’ve, we’ve got actually a few questions about invoicing. Okay. And so the question here is how do I switch clients from invoicing to auto pay or up front payment? And a bigger question is how to stop invoicing. Well, Wess from doesn’t deal with the kind of people that won’t pay is my how you do it. But you send me an invoice. Okay. So you invoice me for services. It was once a month. Yes. Could it be free next month?

Very small chance.

He’ll know. He’ll send me a bill and it’s every month. And I always go, Whoa, I love Wes, but he’s great and he saves me hundreds and hundreds of thousands. But I’m just saying if you get a bill and West just won’t work with you if you’re the kind of person that won’t pay bills. So that’s his of, I mean, do you agree you don’t deal with people, you don’t like to stop taking their calls? Yeah. So that’s what he does. Now. He is in a law. Didn’t your guys are invoicing huge amounts to huge organizations and for his practice, they’re to a point where they’re telling people no. All the time. It’s very different. But if you’re like a plumber, a doctor, a dentist, a it service, whatever, you would just tell them, Hey, starting December 1st so that we can offer consistently great staffing and et cetera. We’re just going to be charging on the first of the month via debit card or credit card.

Or if you’re a plumber, you show up in the house and you say, Mr. Smith, it’s going to be $206 to fix your a toilet and your sink and you want to do debit card or credit card. And if they say, can you invoice me? You say, Nope, but we do debit card or credit card. And then the cool thing about a credit card is they can pay it 30 days later. You know what I mean? But you’ve got to get comfortable with that conversation. That’s how you do it. Does that answer the question? Is that good? Oh, not good. Moving on back to you Robert. Okay, another question on invoicing. Does not invoicing always work? Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, it does. Now, the reason why people don’t want to invoices, they say, well, I’m the only plumber in town that wouldn’t invoice. We go back, Andrew, we got the stats. But again, an America today, you’ve got 9% of the population starts a business every year and only 10% of that 9% don’t fail. So you have a 0.009% chance of success. So it’s best not to ask your peers. Just ask people who are making a lot of money, who are successful, ask them how to do it. Charles, if you invoiced for fitness, how would that go?

Yeah, there we go. Hey,

Well, let me tell you, you can sometimes [inaudible] service industry, you’ll get a little pushback and I want to pay you right now until you do the job. You can still move from lawyer. Sometimes what we do is we ask for a retainer upfront so we hold the money and then we’ll bill against it. So I mean that’s another move you can do if you’re in that kind of an industry where that’s acceptable. So you have the money, you just pay yourself after you earn it. And that’s another movie you can use if you, if it’s not possible to get money,

Like what boy wife are in the process of, you know, buying something. And when you buy it, you can pick an Ernst payment to reserve the thing you know, earns. You just can’t get in a spot where you’re a builder and you’re building everything. You’re out, all the costs of materials, all the supplies. And then how many of you have ever done that? You’re building, you do something, you do a lot of work, and then you’re that check for 60 days. Who’s had this happen? Oh, and it’s just not worth it. And it happens all the time to all of you. So you just cannot believe people if they absolutely cannot afford it, you can do third party financing and sun trust does a sun trust is a great company. You can do sun trust, a home renovation, and you type that in. You can see them and it’s a third party credit service who’s been to Mathis brothers haunt appliance, a car dealership. They’re all third party financing. You’re not getting financing through Mathis brothers or through Hahn appliance or do you have a question Kevin?

[Inaudible]

Yeah, you’re, I would just recommend you pass it on to the customer. The company that we use. Can you go to thrive time show.com/credit cards? We use a dude by the name of Tyler who was introduced to me. I, I’ve used every credit card processor for years, a different ones. And I just kept having a problem where I felt like they were gouging me. So I sat down with Tyler and I said, for elephant in the room, I use this processor for make your life Epic. I use this processor. I want you, did you find it? It should be a credit. I think it’s like credit cards. Like one word. Let’s see if can got it. Credit card. Try that.

Can I jump in here? Just [inaudible] agree. Pass the cost onto your clients. But one caveat, many States won’t allow you to charge a credit card surcharge. You know where I’m gonna add 3% if you don’t pay cash or if you use a card. So you have to add it into your pricing. A not as a surcharge because many States, including Oklahoma, you can’t charge them a surcharge for using a credit card.

Yeah.

Andrew, why don’t you grab a 3% across of all your pricing? Yeah. Just add it to all your pricing.

There we go. Let’s try it again here. We’re going to get it all. Come on. Here we go. Hey Devin, you might wanna write it down. It’s putting a permalink so it like, no matter what you type in, we can find it. Maybe you know what mean like a cards and card. Are you finding it there all come on. We want it. We need it. We got to have it. Oh geez. It takes my joy away. Andrew, I’ll let you and Devin work on this and we’ll find it. We’ll come back. Okay. Back to you Robert. Okay. When you have multiple businesses, how do you know which one to focus on to grow? Now I’m going to quote your dad, be fruitful. Then multiply, which he’s quoting God, by the way. Genesis one 28

Just to throw that out there.

So this is, he’s a wise guy, but I got to give credit where credit’s due. Quit taking your dad’s quote thunder away. Well, I’m afraid that Thunder’s going to come down on me CRO. God. So work with me on this though. Well the reason why elephant in the room is successful is when we started elephant in the room, the men’s grooming lounge. I was prepared, my wife and I were prepared to lose $5,000 every week for five years. That was my commitment level. It was like, we’ll lose, I don’t care how long it takes. I’m prepared to lose five grand a week, every week for five. And we only lost 2,500 a week every week for like three years because you gotta like get to 650 members to break even. You know what I mean? Now it does well, but it’s a, Tesla took 10 years to become profitable.

10, 10. Fedex took 13 years. Fedex, Fred Smith, ESPN, they won’t, the guy who founded ESPN Rasmussen claims it was 12 years. Another guy who was in charge says it was 11 but you know what I’m saying? I mean they take a long time. Facebook lost 3.6 $3 million in their first three years. Google lost over $4 million in her first three years. It’s crazy. I mean think about that. So you, you, you gotta make sure you’re well funded in terms of your commitment levels. So you might need a separate job like Applebee’s, target and direct TV. Those ones are always hiring cause no one wants those jobs. So you might like own a business. By the way. I also work at Applebee’s. See me there on Friday nights. You know what I mean? Like I’m like a contractor guy, but you can see me at Applebee’s on Friday and Saturday.

I’m blue, I’m appearing alive in concert. I’ll be there to get you what you want. You know, that’s how you do it. And then if you look here, this is the, if you guys go here, it’s thrive time show.com forge slash credit dash card. And this is the number (902) 402-6766. And I made him sit down with me for hours and compare his rates versus Heartland and first data. And the way it works is the credit. Who here has a credit card guy, they make a small percentage of what you make on every deal. So if I’m a credit card guy, I might make 0.25%, I might make a quarter of a percent per transaction, but you understand they can set their own commission as high as half a point, three quarters of a point and most of them will set it high. And then only when you ask them to compare, will they actually be transparent about how much they’re making.

And I don’t have a problem about it with a guy making a ton of money because he makes a lot of money now. But I was able to cut my credit card fees almost in half just by switching to Tyler and comparing. And then the other company, it was elephant, we didn’t switch to Tyler. We stuck with the other company, but they lowered their prices almost in half after comparing with Tyler. So I would recommend you would call that guy and set up a meeting and just see how much you can save. And he works with a lot of our companies. I think Papa gallows the pizza place, he just saved him $1,200 a month, every month. And it’s just like, cause he’s more long ball longterm. He wants to get help you, you know, save money and then keep you forever as opposed to trying to gouge you and make it all right now. So that’s, that’s my guy. So next question, how do you mystery shop a non brick and mortar business? A Wes?

You’re an

Attorney. I am. And we have to call your phone to schedule an appointment. Is that correct? That is correct. And we call your assistant, right? Yes. And you told me not to give out your cell phone number. I repeatedly have asked you yet. And I think it was like three years in a row that you said brother. It was really nice too. It was like Joel Osteen’s on the phone, his brother you can just, you know, not give out my cell phone, you know, cause I’m, I got my wife and she’s great and a kid, you know, family and I just, I just, if you call my secretary, I’m like, sure. And then people were like, Hey, who’s your attorney? I’m like, Oh, let me give you his number. And it was like, thanks for referral. I really appreciate that, but I need you to not give up my phone.

And I’m like, Oh yeah. Oh yes. And it’s happened for three years. So eventually my wife’s like, apparently he doesn’t want to give you, want you to give out a cell phone. And I’m going, Oh my. Yeah. He’s been saying that for like three years. So Vanessa was like stop it. And I’m like, okay, I’ll stop anyway. So don’t give out his cell phone number anymore. But you kinda, you have a tight reign on your team, you know what’s going on there. But a lot of small businesses we don’t. So what I would recommend you would do is one, have somebody who you, you, you, you, you like, like your aunt or your cousin. Put them on payroll for 25 bucks a week, 45 bucks a week and just say, I need you to call my business twice a week and see how we’re doing it.

Just pay him 25 bucks a week and have him call every week and pretend to be a customer. That’s a great way to, to mystery shop. And then if you have employees that are working on job sites, have them take video footage or take photos of the job site before they leave. That’s what my pool guy did. Awesome. Every day the guys left for the perfect job site. Always took photos. And Andrew, you’ve seen the other contractors. Some guys like to leave bottles of pop and beer and Cheetos, you’ve seen that. But my pool guy doesn’t cause my pool guy insists you take photos of the job site and then he also has KPIs or key performance indicators. So he, you know, he, he knows, he knows what he expects you to do. It’s like with a pool like mine, he says this thing should be done in this many days. And so every day you should make this much progress and you have to send him photos every day. And then he randomly shows up at job sites and that’s how you do it. And I not to

Just cause you have a brick and mortar, don’t mystery shop over the phone. So like if you call my firm the, we call our own firms sometimes, you know, are they having, are they nice on the phone, how do they sound on the phone and am I going to voicemail in the middle of the day? Which is a huge problem, you know, because the receptionist can’t get on and off quick enough. So just because it’s a brick and mortar, don’t leave out all the other ways that your customers might be contacting you

And then put GPS devices in the bottom of all work trucks cause you’ll find the number one place the employees won’t go as to work. Andrew, Aaron, have you seen this now? I worked with a pharmaceutical sales company about five years ago and we, they were really fighting me on GPS and I said just put it on. I’m like, well we don’t want to blindside the guys. I’m like, throw your trucks, you own them. He says, let’s put it on them. Don’t tell them and then we’re going to tell him in the meeting starting next month we’ll be putting them on, be ready and then we’ll just see where they’re going. Hooters, Outback, Hooters, night trips, Hooters, Outback, night trips, Hooters, Hooters, Hooters, Hooters, night trips, Hooters, Outback, never to a doctor’s office for multiple people. Three out of the four guys were just disasters of people and then we pulled them aside, said, guys, we got the little GPS. You can see here where you went this month. Where’s that? What doctors there. Ah, this must be a malfunction. So always put GPS, is that right? Right, right. And Aaron Shaw homes. When you have tons of work trucks, you got to put the GPS in there, right?

Yeah. We had a person who’s supposed to make a house was basically turning in all these hours for, you’ve seen overtime and apparently from the master bedroom of us house.

There we go. Yeah. So you just got to track everything back to you Robert. Okay. There’s a question on page one 25 on the boom book where all those marketing, what is a speech based marketing speak that would be like West. You get asked to speak. I asked you to speak today. Okay. and Wes, could you explain what’s your legal relationship is with Charles Cola?

Oh yeah, he’s a client of mine.

Okay. And Charles, could you please explain your legal relationship between you and me?

Bye.

So, okay. So I worked with Charles. Charles, I tell you, it took me about four months to maybe win over Amber, maybe four. It took you about a year, maybe, maybe just today. Today. No, not today, maybe to next week. But Charles has been screwed by so many personal trainers who they start taking clients on the side and saying, Hey, I know you have to pay Charles, but if you do on the side, I’ll do it for half. Why has it not happened a lot? So once you get to a place where someone can trust you, Charles is like, you know, who do you recommend? That kind of thing. So I recommend Wes, but Wes is here today to educate you guys. But also he’s not interested in dealing with like a crazy people, you know, he wants to deal with actual viable businesses. So that’s why he’s here West. Could you explain the rationale between why you would take an hour of your day to come here when you could typically be hitting a golf ball?

Well, yeah, I wonder if it’s two fold. One I enjoy talking to you and educating, you know, answering questions. And then two is that, you know, some of these times when I’ve come to speak and I meet someone and we developed a relationship, it’s a good fit. And I can, you know, earn some new business.

That’s it. That’s what speech based marketing is. That’s if I would only do that if you’re good at speaking. I worked with one guy years ago who was an accountant who was not good at speaking, but who is good now just as many, many moons ago. And his whole thing is he would get up in front of people and he, his presentation was so terrible that you thought he was a bad accountant, but he’s a great accountant. He just came across. So now I always do this. He would say that a lot. I always do this or, or I didn’t have anything prepared really. I mean, I did, but not really. But then it’s like I was gonna, you know, the best man at the wedding. He was kinda, you know, shit. People in the back. I can’t hear you. We can’t hear you, you know?

Okay. Sorry. My bad. Oh my bad. Oh, just Aw Frick. Just, you know, the guy who never, I’m not kidding, the guy who never curses would be like, shit. I mean, you know, just, I mean it was bad, but he sent me video, we watched video of him doing it and our meetings consisted of him presenting to me seriously. This is, we were downtown Tulsa. He’d present to me, just he and I for the whole hour but 40 minutes. And then I would show him video footage of it and I’m like, now next week I’m going to bring in four employees to watch you. And he’s like, Oh God, it’s like too many. Okay, we’ll do two. No, just one other. So it’s me and my assistant and him. And then we grew to four. Then we had them come present to our whole team and at this time he didn’t fall off the wagon.

And I’m like, wow, you’re getting Wess a good presenter. And that’s why that works for him. But if you’re not a good presenter, just become one all gaze. There’s a a, there’s a number of notes here that I think you wrote down. One note here is available parking spaces. Yeah. You just don’t want to compete against something that you can’t beat. So that’s the thing. So for Cola fitness, I mean you’re beating the crap out of planet fitness right now in Bartlesville. But I mean if you look at Bartlesville gyms, are they not in your same parking lot? Isn’t that a great feature? Look, our competitors opening up in their same shopping center. How nice. This is fabulous spirited competition we shall have. Hold on. This is exciting. Why don’t we compete against him? So, but if you go type in job when gyms and get off that map for just a second.

Japlin gyms are Bartlesville gyms. I’m sorry. Just get off that map. So go back to normal Google and search for Bartlesville gyms and scroll down. You see Cola has, how many reviews are Andrew? 1,172 how many does planet have? 53 yeah. Yay. Yay. Plan it. We did our best. So you guys are doing great. But again, that’s a game you could win on. We couldn’t plan. It has how many locations now? Like they have 1800 locations. We can’t outspend them, but we can out hustle them. And that’s what I’m talking about is finding the place you can compete and win on next to you. Robert. How do you compete with under cutters, other cutter under cutters, under cutters? Well, and what industry maybe is that yes, undercut the under cutters so there is no profit. Seriously. And then what you do is you undercut the under cutters cause it’s not the tipping point yet.

You go in there and you knock on the door, Hey, I’d like to trim your trees. I don’t want you to, I’ll do it for really cheap. Okay? And then after you prove your value, then show me other services and then you make money off the other services. Your first month at Cole loss. How much guys? A dollar. It turns out that you have to charge people more than a dollar a month to make a profit. But the first month is a dollar. So he was wanting to undercut the under cutters. Does that make sense? Unless you’re, where’s the Carter and then people are more people are calling you than what you need and then you just say, I’m not the cheapest. Yeah. And hopefully

We all get there. I mean, it’s nice when you get the kind of choose some of your business, but he’s right. I mean, you’re going to have to get underneath their pricing so that you can get your foot in the door and then sell other things that you offer. Or once you get your name established in the market, then you can raise your prices back up to a reasonable level. How’d you get your first 10 clients? Hustling business networking, golf business, network groups, luncheons. I mean, you know, rocket in that phone call on people following up. Yeah. You know, did you have to do some pre consultations? I still do free consultation. Free consultations? Yeah. People, there’s some people like to talk.

Okay, but now how now, how long will you give us free

For a consultation? I’ll give them 15 minutes.

Okay. But it used to be maybe like your first several hours. Maybe

We are afraid, you know, I mean, that’s what you do. I mean, or you know, if you’re trying to get a new client, you know, I’m not going to eat, you know, it’s, it’s a long game. You know, we’re playing the long game. So there’s a lot of clients that come in the door. Let’s say I’m going to start a new LLC for you. Okay. I could charge 1500, $2,000, which is what some people attorneys charge to set up an LLC. But I don’t want just to sell you an LLC. I want to set up an LLC at a low rate so we can develop a relationship and I can have a relationship with you five, 10 years from now. So it’s the same thing. It’s getting your foot in the door, establishing that relationship, showing that that customer can trust you and then you’ve got the next decade to milk them for money.

No, come for money, Robert. Excellent. All. How do you track employees in forest, in the windows or offsite people? I think we covered that. They can feel pretty good about that. You can’t get wifi hotspots and then set up nest cameras that way. Not to move their bike. 50 bucks a month at T-Mobile. Get a wifi hotspot. It looks like a mouse. Turn that bad boy on. Sync it to a nest camera and do it that way. That’s a move. Cool. All right, back to you. Should I go to college? Go to where? College. Should I go to college? If you have a certain degree, is it as required then? Yes, but if not, then no. How can I go there to make friends? Dumb. I’m going to go there to have the best four years of my life. Furthermore, dumb when to go there because it’s a good investment.

No, it’s not. You don’t need to go that don’t go. But it’s like a cultural thing where you go there for four years. You’ve watched a guy talk in circles about things that don’t matter and you come out with a lot of debt and you say, what was the point? And the people in your wedding photos you no longer talk to anymore because they weren’t the best friends of your life. Back to you. How to deal with the it challenge of changing current systems and processes to incorporate new processes. Do I need an it guy? I think everybody needs to have somebody on top of that. It, I mean West, don’t you need somebody who’s on top of your it support?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean I made this mistake early on in the firm because I’m a geek by nature, so I thought, Oh, I can do all this it stuff. Well it turns out, you know, I’m losing productivity at business. Even if it’s something I can figure out and handle myself. My time is better served doing, running the business, getting clients, you know, doing what the business is designed to do and let someone who actually knows more than we probably do that, that they’re, that’s their business. Let them take care of it. You know, find people who are very good at what they do and let them help you.

Who’s who here is an it company? Where are you guys based? I’m in the back there. Where are you guys based? Chop Missouri, won’t you sir? Okay. What about you guys? Dallas, where are you? Where are you based? South Carolina. Yeah. Do you guys suck? So you work with people remotely. Can you work remotely or is had to be hands on. Okay. So if you need an it guy, I mean these are people here, right here today that do that. I used to always have it companies I hire now it’s full time. We have full time people, but I mean you just, you gotta, you can’t have your, you sweet your whole day looking for someone to make the printer print. I suppose to figure it out. How to make the printer print. I’ll say Andrew. Right. Don’t do it. That’s true. Yeah. I’m like, eh, or I’ll say debit. That’s like my technical term down in Devon, Texas. It, and it’s always like you didn’t have it on shut up Devin. You know, you know what I mean? He always, you didn’t even have it on. Where are your pants? Get put the pants on and fix that thing. Okay. Back to you next. Why does your book look like a pack of cigarettes? Well, my mother had just told Vanessa, you here, Hey, Vanessa said that or my mom told my wife, she said, Vanessa, if you marry clay, what would she say?

You’ll never have a normal life. Like a warning. We got engaged. Smart lady. Yeah, that’s smart. That’s true. That’s offensive. You know? No, but so I think entrepreneurship is kind of an addictive thing. Once you realize that you can solve problems at a profit, it’s fun. Who here, who here has gotten to a place where it’s kind of fun and fun? You know? And then it’s fun but won’t, but it’s not fun until it’s really fun. So it’s like learning to play basketball and you’re like, Oh, for 10, when you first start shooting free throws puts, you can hit 90% of them. It’s a fun game. And so it’s, it’s when you start it, once you learn it, it can be kind of an addictive, fun process. And so it’s got a little warning label on it that, that it’s not for most people. It’s not for everybody, but it’s for people like you.

Next one. What is the best calendar to use to and how do you schedule your day the best? What, what does the best calendar to use? Google calendars. What I use, if you pull it up, you can see it, just use Google calendar and I schedule my day by planning out every hour my day. If I didn’t have my wife on the team I would have to take half. I have two thirds of what I do off of my calendar and I would have to do it. And so, ah, just cause it’s like when we have a legal thing, she calls who Wes, she calls me. And what do you guys talk about? Did you guys just talk about, how’s it going?

Talk about you mostly, but it’s no, we talk about all kinds of things. I mean, anything from problems to how do we prevent problems to, you know, things are going good, things are going really bad.

It and Vanessa are very pro Vanessa to kind of think strategically. I would say kind of definitely thinks strategically and then West helps that strategy come into reality. But I would have to at least take half of the things. I’m green. So half of the things on my calendar would have to disappear. Not even have two thirds, cause I’d spend my whole day reading a legal document and going, God, you take the joy, right? How did it West? And I told, I tell people the business conferences, Wes is a kitten kicker for me. So West’s come over, we have 13 cats. Do we not miss enough? We have 13 cats. So we have 13 cats. They come over and they’re little babies. When Vanessa rescues them, they’re little babies and they’re just super cute. And then to me, this is when West walks through the door.

This is what it represents. Here’s my idea, here’s my dream, here’s my marketing strategy. Kind of purring per that person. How do you the person out, Andrew, can you make a personalities? Can you make a personality type that? Yeah. And then West comes in. Oh, Oh, Oh. And then like, why would you punt my kitten? There’s no need to punt a kitten. Kitten kicker. And it’s because he says things like facts, laws, right? Lawsuits, lawsuits, and I’m just no kitten kicker. So that’s how I, but I love him, but it’s like your best friend who comes over on the way out. It’s like, Hey guys, thanks for having me over. Appreciate you. Where’s that cat? I mean, just, you know, it’s a weird thing. So it’s a bittersweet relationship we have, but it’s a bittersweet symphony of commerce. Is that right? West? That’s an excellent way to describe it. Yeah. Bittersweet symphony of commerce. Of kitten kicking back to you next. What should my accounting meeting consist of? A Vanessa can come up here real quick here and I want to respect everybody’s time, but I wanna make sure I answer every question. Vanessa, what does your accounting meeting with yourself look like?

Opening all those bank accounts. Love to do that. And I, I like to know where we are and where we’re projected to be, and then I compare that with, okay, this is where we projected to be. Are we actually there? That makes sense to see kind of what the difference is. Okay. I was expecting by June 1st to be here and I had a lot I had located that this much to go for taxes that are going to be do this much for this project that we’re working on this much for this as much for savings. How are we lining up with where I thought we were going to be with how we are, so I constantly, every Friday get in and check all the bank accounts

And this psycho, she’s sick, she celebrates paying taxes. We always explained to what you do every time you pay our tax bill.

I guess guy, some of the clients you brought me in because I guess they thought it was kind of weird, but I love nothing more than writing that big check and sending it in because I know we’re always ahead of the game. Then they’re never going to come ask and when we filed our tax,

This is how much we owed zero because they already paid in, which makes me feel so good.

Yes.

Jason, how would you describe the energy at the thrive time show in person two day interactive business conferences? I would say that the energy is overwhelming, but in an inspiring way, we get to deal with a lot of newer entrepreneurs that are seeing the successes of people who were in their same boat one, two, three years ago. So they’re starting to let connect the dots. So it’s very inspirational to them without being too woo woo, like they’re seeing actual examples and wins. So the energy is just awesome. I think it’s fun for attendees of our business conference too and beneficial and educational for them to be rubbing shoulders with and spending time with, talking to networking with engaging in conversation with multi-millionaires. Oh, absolute. There’s just not a lot of places where you’re going to sit next to a guy who might own the largest accounting practice in your state.

Right. Why guy who might be the top optometrist in your state or the top fitness business in your state? And it’s very rare to have that many successful people in the same room. Oh, it blows my mind every time. Like I’ve met Cola a handful of times. I’ve, I’ve been on the show with Paul, but every time I see them I’m like, I’m shaking hands with a millionaire right now. This, these people grow successful massive businesses. I’m not going to get this anywhere else. And it makes it seem more attainable, more doable, and it is attainable. But it’s fun to hear them explain to you, Hey, three years ago or five years ago, I was exactly where you are now and I’ve just been diligently implementing this coaching system for three years, four years, five years, six years, seven years. And it’s just that longevity of consistently doing the right thing.

It’s the consistency of implementing the proven strategies that produce a success. And if you’re out there today and you’re on the fence about attending our next in person business conference, book your tickets today by going to thrive time show.com but first go to YouTube and type in thrive time. Show reviews, thrive time, show reviews. As of the time of the recording of today’s podcast, we over, we have over a thousand people who’ve been willing to go on to cameras. I’d be able to hop in front of a camera to share about their experience, real people on real on-camera, sharing about their real experience, attending our business conferences. We also have over 600 Google reviews and over a thousand reviews on iTunes. So if you’re on the fence, it’s a money back guarantee. It’s only 250 bucks. And this business conference will change your life if you diligently implement the systems that we will teach you. And now that he further ado, we’d like to in each and every show with a boom. So here we go. Three, two, one.

Ellen, I want to help you give

The kids a nice Christmas Clarke and we insist, Oh no, I’m not one for charity. Now I know that Eddie, this isn’t charity. It’s family. Nah, come on. If you don’t tell me what they want, I’ll go out and get it on my own. Is this a surprise? Clark gets a real mass surprise. Just a real nice surprise. Here’s a little list. Alphabetical. Starting with Catherine. And if it wouldn’t be too much, I’d like to get something for you. Clark, something real in the ass.