Business Coach Diaries (The 4th of July “Fun Size” Edition of the Thrivetime Show)
Show Notes
Clay shares the real reason 90% of small businesses fail and what you can do about it during this special 13-hour special edition of the Thrivetime Show. This show is a brief 13 hours, 38 minutes, and 37 seconds long…
The Business Coach Diaries
The Real Reason 90% of Small Businesses Fail and What You Can Do About It
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – Moral Depravity is Real Reason Most Businesses Fail
Description – The Real Reason 90% of Small Businesses Fail – Sex, Lies, Drugs and Poor Management Are the Real Reason That Most Businesses Fail
Chapter 2 – Business Coach Diaries – Chasing Unicorns
Description – Why It Takes Longer to Get Rich Quick
Chapter 3 – Business Coach Diaries – Skeletons Out of the Closet
Description – When You Consistency Screw Customers the Reviews Haunt You
Chapter 4 – The Client’s Wife is Hitting On My Employee
Description – What to Do When Your Client Is Wanting Business Coaching with Benefits
Chapter 5 – Business Coach Diaries – Death by Invoice
Description – You Can’t Lend Money and Extend Credit Like a Bank Unless You’re a Bank
Chapter 6 – Business Coach Diaries – The F6 Life
Description – You Must Schedule Time for What Matters
Chapter 7 – Business Coach Diaries – Wanting to Become a Best-selling Author without Writing a Book First
Description – Yelling Won’t Take the Place of Actually Writing the Book
Chapter 8 – When the Pastor’s Daughter Uses the Company Credit Card for Personal Expenses
Description – Your Ministry is Not a Bottomless Pit for Personal Spending
Chapter 9 – The $10,000 Invoice Somebody Forgot About Until I Needed Money
Description – Convenient Forgetfulness is Key
Chapter 10 – The Salesman Who Couldn’t Sell
Description – Selling Homes is Easy…Unless You Can’t Sell
Chapter 11 – I May Be On Drugs, But I’m Married to You and I Want to Do the Accounting
Description – Family Trees Should Not Impact Your Company’s Organizational Chart
Chapter 12 – The Non-Doctor, Who Made a Killing Selling Illegal Steroids
Description – Being a Costa-Rica Based Steroid Dealer is Only Profitable in the Short-Term
Chapter 13 – What Time Is Our Meeting Again?
If You Can’t Manage Time, Nothing Else Can Be Managed
Chapter 14 – When the Counselor Who Repeatedly Accidentally Texts You and Your Team Porn
Description – After Napalming Someone It’s Hard to Repair the Relationship
Chapter 15 – Business Coach Diaries – IDGAF
Description – A Look Inside the Millionaire Mindset to Doing Anything
Chapter 16 – Business Coach Diaries – Happy Wife, Happy Life
Description – Financial Tip: You Can Keep 60% of Your Income If You Stay Married
Chapter 17 – I Would Never Hire Your Employees, Except for This Time
Description – Business Isn’t Just Business, Business Is Personal
Chapter 18 – Embezzling Money from the Person Who Saved You
Description – Stealing Cash Shows the World Your an A$%
Chapter 19 – Ideas of the Week to Mask Not Doing the Tasks of the Day
Description – The Addiction to New Will Cause You to Lose
Chapter 20 – Why Dumb Pretty People Can More
Description – Winning With a Bra Size That Is Larger Than One’s IQ
Chapter 21 – Being Chronically Late is Not Related to Racism
Description – The Tyranny of Time Management and the Evils of the Law of Cause and Effect
Chapter 22 – I’m Sleeping with Her and She’s Having a Baby, But Don’t Tell Anybody
Description – Telling People About the Horrible Things That You Do, Does Not Immediately Grant You Forgiveness
Chapter 23 – Is There Any way You Could Appraise My Website to Be Worth $100,000 So I Won’t Lose My Butt in This Divorce?
Description – Your Marketing Company Can’t Inflate the Value of Your Assets to Improve the Outcome of Your Divorce Settlement
Chapter 24 – The Intentional Slip and Fall
Description – I’ve Intentionally Fallen and I’m Pretending to Not Be Able to Get Up
Chapter 25 – Dad of the Year
Description – Keeping Kids Locked in Hot Cars in the Summer is Not a Move
Chapter 26 – Educated Idiots
Description – Knowing Everything, But Doing Nothing
Title – Chapter 27 – Straight as a Circle
Description – The Gender-Fluid Relationship
Chapter 28 – The Losing Combination of Being Both Dumb and Aggressive
Description – Angry and Dysfunctional People Can’t Win
Chapter 29 – Prices So Low They Make Me Cry
Description – You Can’t Make Up for Lack of Profitability Per Transaction by Scaling It
Chapter 30 – The Great New Office That Was Never Used
Description – Great Branding and a Spacious New Office Won’t Help You If You Don’t Actually Show Up to Work
Title – Chapter 31 – Eeyore’s Office
Description – Not Holding Your Family Accountable is a Recipe for Disaster
Chapter 32 – The Elephant In The Room
Description – Nothing Works Unless You Do
Chapter 33 – Entrepreneurship’s Peter Man
Description – Designing the Life You Love or Live a Life You Loathe by Default
Chapter 34 – The Reverse No-Brainer
Description – An Offer So Bad It Confounds Everyone Except for the Creator of It
Chapter 35 – Can You Make My Record Criminal Disappear?
Description – When a Client Wants to Bury Their Criminal Record
Chapter 36 – Robbing Peter, to Rob Paul to Rape Mary
Description – Overcharging a Good Client to Make Up for Misquoting Another Client
Chapter 37 – Cocaine on the Brain Makes It Tough to Focus
Description – When You Routinely Park Your Car Diagonally in Parking Spaces You Might Have a Problem
Chapter 38 – When a Pastor Tries to Steal Your Best Employees
Description – Digital Evidence is Pretty Damning
Chapter 39 – Running Into Your Client at the BOK While He’s Making Out with Twins
Description – Committing 2 Affairs at the Same Time with Two Identical Humans
Chapter 40 – Talking in Circles About Vague Design Ideas and Concepts While Hiding Behind a False Resume
Description – You Can’t Ride the Coattails of an Artificially Inflated Resume
Chapter 41 – I Think He’s Having an Affair, But Don’t Tell Him About My Affair First
Description – It’s Not Best-Practice to Use Your Business Coaching Time-Slot As Your Regularly Scheduled Time to Fornicate
Chapter 42 – If You Don’t Pay Uncle Sam You May End Up Wearing Orange
Description – Don’t Get Your Tax Advice from the Isley Brothers, Wesley Snipes and Pete Rose
Chapter 43 – The Speaker Who Should Have Been Muted
Description – When the Audience Doesn’t Like You, You Should Know Why
Chapter 44 – Refusing to Use a No-Brainer While Your Business Remains a Money Drainer is Not Smart
Description – Nothing Cheapens Your Brand More Than Declaring Bankruptcy
Chapter 46 – The Leader Who Was Loathed
Description – Treating Your Team Like They Are Morons is Not Healthy
*****
Chapter 1 – Moral Depravity is the Cause for Most Businesses to Fail
The Real Reason 90% of Small Businesses Fail – Sex, Lies, Drugs with a Side of Success
- Having coached hundreds of business owners on a one-on-one basis…I have met many entrepreneurs who feel both isolated and blind-sided whenever bad things happen to good people like you.
- In a world where, according to research published by the Washington Post, 78 percent of the men interviewed had cheated on their current partner…
- In a real world, where 75% of employees now steal from the workplace according to a studies reported by CBS News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce…
- And according to Inc Magazine, an incredible 85% of employees lie on their resumes
- It can be easy to become jaded, and cynical, however..you and I must be the light that the world needs.
- The business coaching diaries are recorded to equip you with real examples of the real human dysfunctions that I have personally witnessed which are the actual cause of why 80% of America’s businesses to fail.
FUN FACT – “78 percent of the men interviewed had cheated on their current partner.” – 5 Myths About Cheating – https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-cheating/2012/02/08/gIQANGdaBR_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.05ab54a87466
FUN FACT – “75% of employees steal from the workplace and most do so repeatedly.” – https://www.cbsnews.com/news/employee-theft-are-you-blind-to-it/
FACT – The average American watches 5 hours of TV per day. – https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/business/media/nielsen-survey-media-viewing.htm l
FACT – “ The average American spends will spend more than five years of your life on social media.” https://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/306136
FACT – “Facebook has 50 minutes of your time each day.” – https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/06/business/facebook-bends-the-rules-of-audience-engagement-to-its-advantage.html
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “Only the paranoid Survive” – Andy Grove, Former CEO of Intel
Only 2% of the 2,000 people I have hired have not screwed me.
85 percent of employers caught applicants fibbing on their résumés or applications, up from just 66 percent five years ago. – https://www.inc.com/jt-odonnell/staggering-85-of-job-applicants-lying-on-resumes-.html
Chapter 2 – Business Coach Diaries – Chasing Unicorns
Why It Takes Longer to Get Rich Quick
Story – The MLM fitness man
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “Most people are sitting on their own diamond mines. The surest ways to lose your diamond mine are to get bored, become overambitious, or start thinking that the grass is greener on the other side. Find your core focus, stick to it, and devote your time and resources to excelling at it.” – Gino Wickman, Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business
- I’ve been coaching businesses since 2007. I’ve seen about 8/10 of people who have been on the path and all they have to do is stay on the path and they will reach success.
- Someone will be on top of google, their branding is world class, they are getting leads left and right but… They want to start building the next brand. The new thing
- Once the business gets to the point to where it no longer needs the business owner because of the systems that have been built, they get bored. They think they need to work on the next thing. You have to be fruitful and then multiply.
- I was working with a man in the fitness industry. Most people want someone who is incredibly in shape. He was jacked. We helped him with the branding, got him to the top of google and developed a great no brainer for him.
- The no brainer: $1 For the first month
- If you lose 15lbs you get half of the money back from your second month.
- The man went all into the multilevel that he was involved in. He tried to get many more people to join with him. I decided to no longer work with him and 6 months later, I ran into him in a restaurant and found that he was now a shape instead of in shape. His gym shrunk exponentially and so did his multi-level business. Because he wanted to chase after the new and attractive idea, he lost all of his money and gained a lot of weight.
- Consistency with your business that has been proven to work. The money will flow in slowly but surely if you consistently follow the system.
Chapter 3 – Business Coach Diaries – Skeletons Out of the Closet
When You Consistency Screw Customers the Reviews Haunt You
Story – The Unlicensed Plumbers
Forbes – 91% of people now read reviews before buying something
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.” – Proverbs 10:4
- A while back, we were working with a plumbing company and got the mto the top of google
- We made checklists for them, trained their team, taught them how to record calls and wrapped their vehicles.
- We decided to hire them to fix a problem at our house. They said they would be there at 12:00 noon. My wife was there at noon and they never showed up even after we called them.
- The next day, I had a coaching meeting with them and they told us they were just way too busy.
- They finally came out to fix the problem. When they came out, they completely jacked up our bathroom. The toilet overflowed and we ended up having to call a competitor of theirs.
- When their competitor came out, they informed us that the company that we used and who was also a client was not licensed.
- The client constantly was looking for a way to remove bad reviews.
- The plumber wanted us to not use their name in their marketing video because of their bad reputation.
- They would constantly do jobs where they would have clients pay up front for jobs and they would not finish the jobs they committed to.
- When you constantly screw customers, the reviews will constantly haunt you as they should.
- Do what you say you are going to do at least. The most selfish thing you can do is to do more than you said you will do.
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – PROVERBS 10:4 – Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.
Chapter 4 – The Client’s Wife is Hitting On My Employee
What to Do When Your Client Is Wanting Business Coaching with Benefits
Story – The Medical Client Who Wants to Meet Your Team One-On-One For Personal Coaching of Your Female Employees
- There was a husband and wife team in the medical industry. A week prior to one of our meetings, the husband wanted to hire one of our previous employees. We were in a meeting with them and the husband was talking to one of the employees about something on the agenda and they were constantly hitting on each other.
- 4 or 5 months later, we brought it up in one of our meetings. Once we found out what was really happening we offloaded the client.
- We helped them grow and get to the top of Google. Their biggest limiting factor according to them was that they could not hold employees (As much as they wanted to…). Every time they would hire someone, that person would leave a few weeks later. No one wanted to work there because they openly worked with and hated their spouse. They also were openly hitting on their employees.
- Don’t bring your dysfunction into the workplace.
Chapter 5 – Business Coach Diaries – Death by Invoice
You Can’t Lend Money and Extend Credit Like a Bank Unless You’re a Bank
Story – The home remodeler who owed money to everybody because he allowed everybody to owe him money
- The way it should work: 25% down and every week you would pay 25%.
- You can really develop trust with the consumer by telling them they pay based on completion.
- We got a client of ours to the top of google and got leads coming in for them.
- They got a project that they thought would take 30 days so they bought materials on credit at the lumber store for 45 days. He also invoiced the customer.
- The project ended up taking 4 months and the lumber store turned them over to collections. Their credit plummeted and their employees quit because they had not gotten paid.
- They had taken a huge $1,000,000 job on an apartment complex that they didn’t ever quite finish so they never got paid and neither did their employees. The company went bankrupt.
- It wasn’t a sales problem, it wasn’t a marketing problem, it wasn’t a quality problem it was simply an invoicing problem.
- A plant dies without sunlight. A vehicle dies without fuel. A person dies without blood. A business dies without cash flow.
Chapter 6 – Business Coach Diaries – The F6 Life
You Must Schedule Time for What Matters
Story – The Dr. Z story
- NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “What gets scheduled gets done.” – Lee Cockerell managed 40,000+ employees at Walt Disney World Resorts
- When Dr. Z is scheduled for something, he is there when he says he will be and he leaves right at the time he said he would. He lives his life very intentionally. He always has something going on and if he is ever early, he makes sure to be productive and get things done.
- He has systems and processes in place so that all of the businesses he has can run without him.
- Three Action Items:
- Dr. Z does not suffer fools well.
- Do not promote idiots in positions of leadership.
- He will not put a fool in a position of leadership.
- Only work via appointment.
- Set specific times for when you will be at specific locations and when you will not.
- Working via appointments is being proactive as opposed to being reactive.
- Insist upon systems and say no to everything not in the system.
- When you are first starting out, you have to do some things that don’t fit into the system but as you scale you only accept things that fit into a system.
- At Dr. Z’s auto auction, you have to be a licensed used car buyer and if you are not, you can not buy a car because it doesn’t fit in the system.
- 1,000 cars in 4 hours / 1 car every minute
- Systems:
- Refunds
- Maintaining
- VIN numbers
- Photos of cars
- Online listings
- Auctioning
- Cleaning cars
- Driving cars
- Serving food
- Dr. Z does not suffer fools well.
Chapter 7 – Business Coach Diaries – Wanting to Become a Best-selling Author without Writing a Book First
Yelling Won’t Take the Place of Actually Writing the Book
Story – The Almost MLM King That Wanted to Sell You His Magic System That Didn’t Work
- MLM is a multi-level business – https://www.ftc.gov/public-statements/1998/05/pyramid-schemes
- This client wanted to sell a book that he had not written
- Steps to writing a book:
- You have to have a title, table of contents and outline
- Sit down and write the book
- Edit the book
- Edit the book again
- Edit the book again
- Get the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) number – Barcode for retail stores
- Every week I would call the guy to get the content for the book and he would never have it. 5 months in, he exploded on the phone because the book had not sold at all when he had not even written the book.
- Many people want to write a book but they can never do it because they are always going through something.
- Horst Schultz talks about how you have to decide your emotions.
- Nothing is more painful than to know what to do and to want success but to not be willing to do what is necessary for success.
- Cognitive Dissonance – The state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change.
- Feeling Good – When you say you will do something and you do it.
- What thing have you been wanting to do for a long time and have just kept putting off?
- Many people who can’t get things done always claim that it is an education problem or a resource problem.
- In order to write the book you have to… Write the book…
What is a Pyramid Scheme and What is Legitimate Marketing?
Pyramid schemes now come in so many forms that they may be difficult to recognize immediately. However, they all share one overriding characteristic. They promise consumers or investors large profits based primarily on recruiting others to join their program, not based on profits from any real investment or real sale of goods to the public. Some schemes may purport to sell a product, but they often simply use the product to hide their pyramid structure. There are two tell-tale signs that a product is simply being used to disguise a pyramid scheme: inventory loading and a lack of retail sales. Inventory loading occurs when a company’s incentive program forces recruits to buy more products than they could ever sell, often at inflated prices. If this occurs throughout the company’s distribution system, the people at the top of the pyramid reap substantial profits, even though little or no product moves to market. The people at the bottom make excessive payments for inventory that simply accumulates in their basements. A lack of retail sales is also a red flag that a pyramid exists. Many pyramid schemes will claim that their product is selling like hot cakes. However, on closer examination, the sales occur only between people inside the pyramid structure or to new recruits joining the structure, not to consumers out in the general public
Chapter 8 – When the Pastor’s Daughter Uses the Company Credit Card for Personal Expenses
Your Ministry is Not a Bottomless Pit for Personal Spending
Story – It’s hard to grow a church and to be transparent about your finances when your church is financing your son-in-law’s deadbeat lifestyle
- When you want to launch ads, you have to have a credit card on file with money in it to run ads.
- This pastor client wanted to launch ads for Easter so they gave us their credit card. He said that there was money on the card. They had 4,000 members and approximately brought in $80,000 per month. They had 2 part time people.
- They had a building expense and 3 employees to pay. They had around $30,000 – $50,000 per month of expenses and were bringing in roughly $80,000 per month.
- We added up all the expenses and on one card there was $25,000 per month being charged on this card. When I asked about what is charged on this card he got very defensive and told me that “It is personal.” and I never saw that man again.
- Action Item – If you have a business, don’t let anyone use the business card for their personal expenses.
Chapter 9 – The $10,000 Invoice I Forgot About Until I Needed Money
Convenient Forgetfulness is Key
Story – Sending an invoice 6 months later for “work done” that they “forgot” to bill for.
- Occasionally we will hire some people who have specialized skills in specific fields.
- We once had someone who worked for us as a contractor, told us that he was moving “To the Northeast”. They told us that they were going to review the work that they had done for us and make sure that they had not “Overcharged us”.
- They sent us an email with an invoice saying that we owed them $11,000 on the first invoice. They decided that they were going to add up all of hours that they claimed they worked and never charged you for and charge you today.
- The kind of person that goes back to a job that they did many months ago to get more money out of it is a dishonest and shady person. You should remove that person from your life.
- After that invoice came through, we found that they were trying to steal our clients and start a business.
- If you get invoices from people trying to scam people, don’t pay them. There is a special place in hell for these people.
Chapter 10 – The Salesman Who Couldn’t Sell
Selling Homes is Easy…Unless You Can’t Sell
Story – Realtor that wanted his homes to sell miraculously
- We had a realtor who wanted to scale their business and grow.
- We told him that we needed to work on:
- Branding
- Getting leads
- Move 1 – Call all expired listings & Call all “For sale by owners”
- Move 2 – Write content on your website & get reviews
- Move 3 – Run ads with a solid no-brainer
- He didn’t have money for the advertisements so we decided to start with sales calls.
- The next week, he had not made the calls, gotten reviews or written any content. This repeated for weeks.
- He didn’t want to focus on sales training they wanted to focus on the big picture. That big picture was huge.
- You have to follow the proven path up the mountain. You won’t get results until you take action.
- If you can’t do the small things right or at all then you won’t do anything right or at all.
- You as the owner have to write the content for your site and if you don’t, your site will not rank and you will not see it on Google.
- You can’t just be high quality. You have to have consistency and systems.
- If you can’t play the game, you have to get out and get a job.
Chapter 11 – I May Be On Drugs, But I’m Married to You and I Want to Do the Accounting
Family Trees Should Not Impact Your Company’s Organizational Chart
Story – You don’t want to be dependent upon a chemically dependent person to handle your finances.
- Is every person in your company doing what is the right fit for them and you?
- It’s okay to have family fill in but if it is not a good fit, don’t keep them there because they are family.
- We worked with a business who was in the category of sports. They were having a cash flow issue.
- They had $45,000 of gross revenue coming in.
- We seperated their income and expenses
- They had an overhead of around $20,000 so they should have around $20,000 left.
- I asked him who handled their accounting and he said that his wife was and he never looked into the finances.
- If you are missing money, it is typically into:
- Gambling
- Significant other on the side
- Drugs
- Add up all of your income and all of your expenses. You will more than likely find that someone is spending a lot of money on either.
- You don’t want to be dependant on a chemically dependant person for your finances.
Chapter 12 – The Non-Doctor, Who Made a Killing Selling Illegal Steroids
Being a Costa-Rica Based Steroid Dealer is Only Profitable in the Short-Term
Story – So here’s the deal…I’m not a doctor, but….
- If someone is on Roids:
- Always angry
- Wide face
- Too jacked
- This “doctor” was not a doctor. We were running a diagnostic on his website and we found that he was linking to adult websites.
- The type of people who are on adult websites are also looking for a quick way to gain muscle.
- He knew that he was advertising all over adult websites.
- He admitted that he was not a doctor and that he thought that people just needed to believe that he was a doctor.
- People who do things like steroids are also going to have massive problems in the rest of their lives. They will be dysfunctional in every aspect of their lives.
- At the end of the day, if they are being dishonest in one area of their life, they will be dishonest in all of their lives.
- Anything you do will be brought to live somewhere.
- NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” – Warren Buffett
Chapter 13 – What Time Is Our Meeting Again?
If You Can’t Manage Time, Nothing Else Can Be Managed
Story – The adult woman who couldn’t remember water time her weekly meeting was for 2 years in a row
- We worked with a client who sold tangible goods.
- How to get to the top of Google:
- Mobile Compliance
- Canonical Compliance
- The Most Content
- The Most Google Reviews
- The client would always forget what time their meeting was and miss meetings.
- Roughly 80% of clients could not figure out what time their meetings were and 50% would just not show up.
- The main reason that most businesses fail is because people can not complete the things that you say you are going to do.
- As an entrepreneur I underestimate the time things take which is a good way to look at life instead of getting beat down by everything.
- If you are always behind, you want to recalibrate your schedule so that you can get things done on time.
- NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “If you can’t manage your time, you can’t manage anything else.” – Lee Cockerell – Former Exec VP of Walt Disney World
Chapter 14 – When the Counselor Who Repeatedly Accidentally Texts You and Your Team Porn
After Napalming Someone It’s Hard to Repair the Relationship
Story – Counselor oops..not once, not twice, not three times…
- Napalm – A highly flammable sticky jelly used in incendiary bombs and flamethrowers, consisting of gasoline thickened with special soaps.
- You can’t be a Christian Counselor and send links to adult websites to your team.
- You can miss a meeting once a year and it is not great. When you are late every meeting, that is napalming.
- Being high at meetings is a napalm for your career.
- Napalms don’t kill you immediately, they slowly kill your business from the inside out.
Chapter 15 – High-Times Bathroom Breaks to Other Planets
Snorting Cocaine in a Public Restroom Is Not a Move
Story – The super thin, fast-talking, MLMer with white stuff on her nose
- We had a client who was always super motivated and always had white powder on their nose. A member of our team was in the bathroom and saw that this person was snorting cocaine.
- I confronted her about them doing drugs in our bathroom and after that, the conversation is over.
- What happens when you take drugs when you feel bad? You will become addicted to that drug and you will do the thing that makes you feel bad more. It is a doom loop that is almost impossible to get out of.
- Every time I tried to help someone on drugs, it always ended badly. As a business owner, it is not your job to council.
FUN FACT – “9.4 percent of the population—had used an illicit drug in the past month.” – https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/nationwide-trends
FUN FACT – “75% of employees steal from the workplace and most do so repeatedly.” – https://www.cbsnews.com/news/employee-theft-are-you-blind-to-it/
Chapter 16 – Business Coach Diaries – IDGAF
A Look Inside the Millionaire Mindset to Doing Anything
Story – The successful clients don’t waste time on endless website updates, networking opportunities and social media marketing that doesn’t help them.
- Giraffes and turtles:
- Giraffes look out and over.
- They see the future.
- They see what is coming and how to get where they need to go.
- Giraffes don’t listen to turtles because they have giraffe things to do.
- If the Giraffe goes down to the turtles level, they will be overtaken by a competitor because they lost focus on the goal.
- Turtles are in the dirt and grass.
- They can’t see far at all.
- They are slow.
- They always think others are moving too fast.
- Turtles try talking to giraffes and the giraffes can’t even hear them.
- The turtle only knows things like the new idea of the week and the next best thing.
- Giraffes look out and over.
- I Don’t Give A Focused moment to _________.
Chapter 17 – Business Coach Diaries – Happy Wife, Happy Life
Financial Tip: You Can Keep 60% of Your Income If You Stay Married
Story – When you cut your net worth in half three times, that’s not good.
- There are always people telling you how to save 5%, 10%, and even 15% but there is one tip that can save you 60% of your income. You don’t want to get a divorce.
- The only reason you got married was probably because you are sexually compatible.
- If you got married because it felt good, wouldn’t you get a divorce because it feels good?
- Successful people do things even when they don’t feel like it.
- Successful people do the things even when they don’t get excited by them.
- Every 60 days, I irritate my spouse.
- Unkind comments
- Forget something
- When the business owner who is getting a divorce go to court, the attorneys typically use the grit and determination of the business owner as a negative aspect. The jury will side with the spouse of the business owner because the jury isn’t made up of business owners.
Chapter 18 – I Would Never Hire Your Employees, Except for This Time
Business Isn’t Just Business, Business Is Personal
Story – The man who wanted to use my company as his minor league employee development system.
- There was a retail business and its owner wanted to shadow me to see the daily operations of our organization.
- The business owner complimented one of our employees and asked where we found them.
- I ran to the restroom between meetings and while I was gone, he was talking to the team member and convincing them to work for him.
- A week later, that employee called and told me that they were going to work with that client that shadowed.
- The client told me that it is just business and it is not personal. It is personal. Business is how I feed my family and that makes it personal. It is also your lifestyle and your reputation.
- NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.” Benjamin Franklin
- Business is one of the most personal things there is because it is how you make it through life.
Chapter 19 – Embezzling Money from the Person Who Saved You
Stealing Cash Shows the World Your an A$%
Story – The man who robbed his other brother daily
- If you steal cash from your brother because you need $20, is that justifiable?
- If $1,000 is taken once per week to support his new girlfriend and child, is that justifiable?
- If they take $30,000 on top of that, is that justifiable?
- It is a felony when what you steal is over $1,000
- If you steal over $100,000 per year over time, should they go to jail? Yes…
- Typically it is harder for the client to fire and charge the employee because they are emotionally connected to them.
- You have to have standards and consequences otherwise they will screw you.
- Family will take advantage of you more often than strangers will because people who are close to you know your weaknesses and your patterns.
Chapter 20 – Ideas of the Week to Mask Not Doing the Tasks of the Day
The Addiction to New Will Cause You to Lose
Story – The office manager who was obsessed with implementing the new initiative of the week at the cosmetic surgery center
- If your job is to be the office manager, your job is probably to manage the office.
- The office manager is claiming that they are turning down patients every day and wants to focus on going viral on social media.
- How to go viral:
- A scandal
- A celebrity
- A cute baby or kitten
- Going viral is not a system. It is a distraction and an endless loop.
- The office manager next wanted to focus on marketing to a completely different industry as another distraction.
- Next, the office manager wanted to focus on getting an email newsletter sent out to all clients and to also go viral.
- The ones who are not doing their jobs always have to find more reasons to not do their job. They have to find a reason to have more things to do their job. They have to find a way to look busy
Chapter 21 – Why Dumb Pretty People Can More
Winning With a Bra Size That Is Larger Than One’s IQ
Story – Men often make hiring decisions after consulting their penis
- Why do people who are attractive typically get a hall pass and get paid to do nothing? The person making the hiring decisions simply likes the way they look and they are willing to pay that person just to look at them.
- What is frustrating about it is that these people have been handed these opportunities and they think they are the smartest person because of it.
- In school, athletes who should be getting an “F” in class but they get a “B” just so they can pass.
- Just because they are an attractive person, the customer does not care if they are attractive when they make a huge mistake.
- You have to run the person through the 4 E’s by Jack Welch
- Can they Execute
- Energy. Do they bring energy to work?
- Energize. Do they energize others?
- Edge. Do they have the edge to make the tough call
- Passion. Are they passionate about their job?
Chapter 22 – Being Chronically Late is Not Related to Racism
The Tyranny of Time Management and the Evils of the Law of Cause and Effect
Story – People judging you for being chronically late and never doing what you say you are going to do is not related to racism
- Asian clients in my experience are never late and always pay on time.
- White clients in my experience are typically late and miss payments.
- If you are chronically late you can’t just throw out the racist or sexist
- NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.” – Andrew Carnegie
- You should hire people and hold everyone to the same standards.
- You should not hide behind gender or race.
Chapter 23 – I’m Sleeping with Her and She’s Having a Baby, But Don’t Tell Anybody
Telling People About the Horrible Things That You Do, Does Not Immediately Grant You Forgiveness
Story – The man who liked to sleep with his female employees
FUN FACT – “78 percent of the men interviewed had cheated on their current partner.” – 5 Myths About Cheating – https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-cheating/2012/02/08/gIQANGdaBR_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.05ab54a87466
Chapter 24 – Is There Any way You Could Appraise My Website to Be Worth $100,000 So I Won’t Lose My Butt in This Divorce?
Your Marketing Company Can’t Inflate the Value of Your Assets to Improve the Outcome of Your Divorce Settlement
Story – The man who wanted me to lie about the value of his marketing materials to reduce his divorce settlement
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.” – Jack Welch (The former CEO of GE who grew the company by 4,000%)
Chapter 25 – The Intentional Slip and Fall
I’ve Intentionally Fallen and I’m Pretending to Not Be Able to Get Up
Story – Lady “falling” but is on camera
Chapter 26 – Dad of the Year
Keeping Kids Locked in Hot Cars in the Summer is Not a Move
Story – Kids in car with windows up in the heat
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “Every time I read a management or self-help book, I find myself saying, “That’s fine, but that wasn’t really the hard thing about the situation.” The hard thing isn’t setting a big, hairy, audacious goal. The hard thing is laying people off when you miss the big goal. The hard thing isn’t hiring great people. The hard thing is when those “great people” develop a sense of entitlement and start demanding unreasonable things. The hard thing isn’t setting up an organizational chart. The hard thing is getting people to communicate within the organization that you just designed. The hard thing isn’t dreaming big. The hard thing is waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat when the dream turns into a nightmare.” – Ben Horowitz (The best-selling author of The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers and founder of Opsware which was sold to Hewlett Packard for $1.6 billion of cash in June of 2007)
Don’t trust your gut, trust The Bible and the 10 Commandments.
Chapter 27 – Educated Idiots
Knowing Everything, But Doing Nothing
Story – The innovative product with no innovative or motivated ways to sell something
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “My observation is that the doers are the major thinkers. The people that really create the things that change this industry are both the thinker and doer in one person. And if we really go back and we examine, you know did Leonardo have a guy off to the side that was thinking five years out in the future what he would paint or the technology he would use to paint it, of course not. Leonardo was the artist but he also mixed all his own paints. He also was a fairly good chemist. He knew about pigments. [And] knew about human anatomy. And [combining] all of those skills together, the art and the science, the thinking and the doing, was what resulted in the exceptional result.” – Steve Jobs (The co-founder of Apple, the former CEO of PIXAR and the founder of NeXT)
Chapter 28 – Straight as a Circle
The Gender-Fluid Relationship
Story – The married woman, who had a female business partner that became her life partner
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “People around you, constantly under the pull of their emotions, change their ideas by the day or by the hour, depending on their mood. You must never assume that what people say or do in a particular moment is a statement of their permanent desires.” – Robert Greene (The best-selling author of The 48 Laws of Power, Mastery, The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, The 50th Law (with rapper 50 Cent), and The Laws of Human Nature)
Chapter 29 – The Losing Combination of Being Both Dumb and Aggressive
Angry and Dysfunctional People Can’t Win
Story – The father and his dysfunctional son
Chapter 30 – Prices So Low They Make Me Cry
You Can’t Make Up for Lack of Profitability Per Transaction by Scaling It
Story – The cupcakes, the low prices, and the van
Chapter 31 – The Great New Office That Was Never Used
Great Branding and a Spacious New Office Won’t Help You If You Don’t Actually Show Up to Work
Story – The fancy branding, the endless headshots and zero sales
Chapter 32 – Using My Name to Hire People I’m Not Aware Of
Borrowing the Reputation of Others is Not a Sustainable Public Relations Strategy
Story – When you meet a man with a man-bun who looks as though he hasn’t slept in a month or eaten in 3 years…run
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “Reputation is the cornerstone of power: through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once it slips however you are vulnerable and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable. Always be alert to potential attacks and thwart them before they happen. Meanwhile learn to destroy your enemies by opening holes in their own reputations. Then stand aside and let public opinion hang them.” – Robert Greene (The best-selling author of The 48 Laws of Power)
Chapter 33 – Searching for What You Already Have
Why Entrepreneurs Travel the World Only to Discover That What They Want is At Home
Story – I’m a traveling man
DEFINITION – Asymptote – a line that continually approaches a given curve but does not meet it at any finite distance.
Chapter 34 – The Dark Side of Entrepreneurship
Stealing Employees, Systems and the Business Model from Your Coach
Story – Because From $0 to $15,000 Per Month Wasn’t Good Enough
Chapter 35 – Eeyore’s Office
Not Holding Your Family Accountable is a Recipe for Disaster
Story – The Lazy Daughter Who Wouldn’t Call the Leads
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one’s acts.” – Mahatma Gandhi (Gandhi was the main organizer of India’s independence movement and the main mastermind behind the non-violent civil disobedience that began to change the world. Up until the time of his assassination in 1948, Ghandi was able to inspire the actions of activists including Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.)
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.” – Proverbs 10:4
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “Ninety-nine percent of all failures come from people who have a habit of making excuses.” – George Washington Carver (George was the main African-American scientist and inventor of his time and he is best known for his invention of the many uses of the peanut. George was born into the world of slavery, yet he went on to become the botanist and one of the leading inventors of his time. Throughout his lifetime, Carver created more than 100 products using the one major crop, the peanut that he knew his fellow African-American friends could produce including dyes, plastics and gasoline.
- Hiring family is a gamble. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.
- If you do work out a deal, it usually is a great deal for both parties.
- You have to hold your team and especially your family members accountable. You have to track them, listen to their calls and follow up constantly.
- Excuses employees use when they don’t do their jobs
- I didn’t know how to do my job
- I need something else to do my job
- There was a miscommunication on how to do my job
- If you hire your family and they don’t do their job, no one will ever bring up to you the fact that they are not doing their job because they are afraid that you as the owner would fire them.
- If you want to put your family on your payroll, you can just pay family members to not show up. Pay them to visit other businesses and mystery shop.
- If you want to help a parent or a close family member just make them an employee. They get benefits and pay.
- If you give someone a check one time, they will spend it immediately. If you pay them bi-weekly, they will only run out of money weekly.
- The Oklahoma Rumer Strategy – Ask a business owner for money, get a rejection from the business owner and pray passive-aggressively for them and their business.
- If you hire someone close to you, they will take advantage of you because they know your patterns and where you will and won’t be. You have to follow up with them and hold them accountable.
- If you hire and pay someone, they don’t do anything right and they are unfireable, you end up hurting them long term.
Chapter 36 – The Elephant In The Room
Nothing Works Unless You Do
Story – The Business People Who Couldn’t Find the Time to Call the Leads, Deliver the Service They Had Been Paid For, to Write Content or to Do Anything
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.” – Proverbs 14:23
- When you see invoices from companies that you don’t recognize, it should be a red flag. If the LLC’s that the random invoices are registered to your employees, you should be a little suspicious.
- If you are only open 3 days a week and close at 3:00 PM every day your business won’t work.
- Your business won’t work unless you do. Your business won’t work unless you’re open.
- You have to jump from a job to a business.
- Whenever you get busy, you can:
- Crank up your prices
- Limit your hours
- Expand your physical space, open times and amount of employees.
- If you don’t look for good employees or anything, you won’t find them.
- FUN FACT: Ninety-one percent of Millennials (born between 1977-1997) expect to stay in a job for less than three years, according to the Future Workplace “Multiple Generations @ Work” survey of 1,189 employees and 150 managers.” – Forbes
- If you are constantly looking for people you will always have good people. If you find a good person and don’t need another employee you can refer them to another business owner you know.
- The person who is always “going to do it tomorrow” are also known as Wantrepreneurs.
Chapter 37 – Entrepreneurship’s Peter Man
Designing the Life You Love or Live a Life You Loathe by Default
Story – (5 Kids, 20 + Silkie Chickens, 2 Waterfalls, Multiple-Multi-Million Dollar Businesses, $10 And 1 Shorts, Wearing a Jersey Everyday, and Never Going Out to Eat)
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “When I was 5 years old, my mom always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down “happy.” They told me I didn’t understand the assignment and I told them they didn’t understand life.” – John Lennon (The English singer, songwriter, and peace activist who co-founded the Beatles with Paul McCartney, became the the most commercially successful band in the history of popular music.)
- There are a lot of people who go around all day trying to make people think they are someone else. I enjoy being around people who are honest and candid.
- Warren Buffett, in his book Snowball, talks to his wife about “upgrading” to a younger woman and his wife was okay with it. That might not be a great decision but he was incredibly candid.
- Warren Buffett knew he didn’t live the most “ethical” life but he knew he was good at one thing. Investing. He realized that he is not a perfect person but he is not trying to claim to be.
- You have to be authentically you and the way you do that is with humor because most people can’t handle candor or authenticity.
- You have to come to a solution otherwise you will suffer death. Death by meetings.
- You have to spot out the time wasting events and run from them.
- The Evolution of Clay
- Then:
- He was always angry because people mocked him and because of all of the club gigs.
- He was very driven and hardworking but not everyone could see it.
- He wore suits every day.
- He was lacking fun.
- Now:
- He has left the people behind who were Wantrepreneurs and started hanging out with actual Entrepreneurs.
- He is still driven but now with a purpose
- He wears what he wants
- He has fun with his family
- Then:
- You have to do what you have to do to become successful until you become Peter Pan.
Chapter 38 – The Reverse No-Brainer
An Offer So Bad It Confounds Everyone Except for the Creator of It
Story – The Power Washer Who Wanted Clients to Annually Prepay for Services
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “What you need to succeed in a startup is not expertise in startups. What you need is expertise in your own users.”
- A No-Brainer:
- The 1st Power Wash you get for half price. Second, if you are happy, you can pay full price.
- First ______ For $1!
- A Reverse No-Brainer:
- Charge people $6,000 per year up front and I will come once per month.
- If you refer my company, a $10,000+ job, you will get $10.
- We’ll match any price.
- You get your first meal for $1 after you sign up for a 30 day membership.
- Getting a photo unrelated to your industry and putting on everything.
- There are 3 things you have to do:
- Get Google reviews every day
- Do a No-Brainer
- Write content
- You have to create a No-Brainer that will make people want to rush to your business.
- If you make a No-Brainer, It has to irritate your competition. If it doesn’t annoy them or make them question you, get a new No-Brainer.
- 66% of people want to start a business – Forbes
- A good no brainer is more of a game changer than most people think. Most business owners believe No-Brainers devalue their brand. It actually devalues your brand by not having a No-Brainer.
Chapter 39 – Can You Make My Record Criminal Disappear?
When a Client Wants to Bury Their Criminal Record
Story – Google Indexes the Most Relevant Content Including Your Domestic Abuse Criminal Record
- The 4 things that determine your Google Rank
- Who has the most content
- Whoever is the most Google Compliant
- Whoever is the most Mobile Compliant
- Who has the most reviews
- I had a client who’s son, who was definitely on steroids, wanted to ask me a question. He assaulted many women and after the fact, he realized that every time you search his name on Google, he comes up for criminal offenses.
- He Wanted to know how to remove his appearances from the top of Google. He wanted to know how to get the good stuff to float on top above the garbage.
- If you knew that your child was on drugs and that they had assaulted a woman, what is the best course of action?
- You have to have an intervention. If he is receptive, unasked advice is unheeded advice, give them the advice they need. If they are not receptive, talk them down to a calm state so they don’t drag you down with them.
- Your network is your net worth. If you hang out with people who have a negative connotation around them you will inherit the negative field that they emit. You will also start allowing the mediocrity of their lives seep into your life and will start affecting your decisions.
Chapter 40 – Robbing Peter, to Rob Paul to Rape Mary
Overcharging a Good Client to Make Up for Misquoting Another Client
Story – The Remodeler Story
- What does it mean to rob Peter to pay Paul?
- It means juggling money between clients to pay each other.
- When refering, make sure that you communicate that they should not just use your reference.
- Robbing Peter, to rob Paul to Rape Mary is when you take money from widdows and blows all of the money at the casino while ghosting the widow.
- You need to be wise, kind, thoughtful and do your homework. Not everyone is good and not everyone is out to screw you.
- I think that people have a harder time with success than failure.
- Money is a magnifier and once you have money, your choices will be magnified.
- If you have to rob Peter to pay Paul because you are invoicing, your business will fail. Your business will die from death by invoice.
- You can not scale a backwards No-Brainer
- Unless you are in the banking business, you are not a bank.
- If your client can’t afford to get any kind of financing from an outside institution, run away from that client as fast as possible. Don’t get greedy.
Chapter 41 – Verbally Abusing Your Wife in Public Is Not a Move
Your Business is Not a Good Place to Work Out Marital Issues
Story – The yeller, the cryer and the coach
- Being committed to being dysfunctional with your spouse occurs about 90% of the time.
- The side comments are what really destroyed the relationship and the business.
- If you can tell that your marriage is going to suffer from working with your spouse, you have to get out of there for the health of your marriage.
- There are people who will hire their spouse just because they are your spouse.
- Anything with two heads is a monster.
- If there is anyone who is unable to do their job, don’t stay committed to the disfunction just because you have a commitment outside of the workplace.
- If you continue with disfunction, the business will fail and then you will all start to be resentful.
- Not Moves:
- Verbally abusing your spouse
- Working out marital issues at the business
Chapter 42 – Cocaine on the Brain Makes It Tough to Focus
When You Routinely Park Your Car Diagonally in Parking Spaces You Might Have a Problem
Story – My dad’s successful, so you need to respect me
DEFINITION – Entitlement – the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.
- Google Reviews
- Most content
- Canonical compliant website
- Mobile compliance
Chapter 43 – When a Pastor Tries to Steal Your Best Employees
Digital Evidence is Pretty Damning
Story – Hi, don’t tell Clay, but I would like to hire you for what you are really worth
- Credit Bureaus
- Experian
- Transunion
- Equifax
- Your credit score is based on what you do and not what you say.
- Your reputation is built on the things you do.
- When someone is shady in one part of their lives, they will be shady in all aspects of their lives.
- Just because they have a title, doesn’t mean anything.
- “Only the Paranoid survive.” – Andy Grove
Chapter 44 – Running Into Your Client While He’s Making Out with Twins
Wo. Committing 2 Affairs at the Same Time with Two Identical Humans
Story – Doctor Handsy takes his front desk lady and her sister on a date
- If someone is cheating on their spouse, they are cheating on everything else in their life. They are screwing over everyone in their entire life.
- People Change Seldom.
- Action Item: Think about anyone in your life or business that is screwing with you. If that is going on you have to remove them before they screw you.
Chapter 45 – Talking in Circles About Vague Design Ideas and Concepts While Hiding Behind a False Resume
You Can’t Ride the Coattails of an Artificially Inflated Resume
Story – The man who turned bs-ing into a science
- A person applies for a job with a certification but does not actually want to do the job.
- Carnegie Mellon: https://www.cmu.edu/
- What is a computer science degree? Computer science degrees deal with the theoretical foundations of information and computation, taking a scientific and practical approach to computation and its applications. Computation is defined as any type of calculation or use of computing technology that follows well-defined models (such as algorithms and protocols) in the practice of information processing (which in turn is defined as the use of these models to transform data in computers).
- This man had a PHD and a masters degree in computer science. We pick him up, take him to dinner, and put him up at the Mayo Hotel.
- He loved to party. So we asked why he wanted to join thrive. He said he wanted to be part of a team. He also said his biggest weakness was that he “worked too hard”.
- He comes to work the next day and we see if he is able to actually code.
- Fun Fact: Hitting someone or yourself in the testicles with a mallet is less painful than a PHP based website.
- Once given the actual task of coding, this man procrastinated non stop instead of actually executing any coding.
- Matt Mullenweg – Creator of wordpress. So simple a monkey named Billy could do it.
- After two consecutive days, he still had not done any coding. But insisted he was more of a manager than a coder. In the end, he could not code.
- The Pushbacks:
- Pushback # 1 – That’s not the way i’ve always done it.
- Pushback # 2 – Hiding behind a resume.
- Pushback # 3 – Lying about previous education and experience.
- Harley spent $99,000.00 to learn:
- Personal Financial Planning
- Consumer Marketing
- Principles of Marketing
- It’s hard to make a list of anything you learn in marketing school that will actually help you in business.
- Business plan steps
- Step #1: Find 1,000 business’ that would benefit from what you do
- Step #2: Going to get their contact information into a Spreadsheet
- Step #3: Get Google review and testimonials
- Step #4: Make website not look like hell
- Step #5: Cold call all of your ideal and likely buyers. Every day every week, then email them
- Step #6: Script out your call
- Step #7: Send out mailers
- S.W.O.T Analysis
- Strengths
- Weakness’
- Opportunities
- Threats
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “As much as possible, avoid hiring MBAs. MBA programs don’t teach people how to create companies.” – Elon Musk (The man behind PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, Solar City, etc.)
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “Organizations are successful because of good implementation, not good business plans.” – Guy Kawasaki (One of the Apple employees originally responsible for marketing their Macintosh computer line in 1984 who later became a venture capitalist. Today he is a best-selling author, venture capitalist and a product evangelist for Canva and Mercedes Benz)
Chapter 46 – I Think He’s Having an Affair, But Don’t Tell Him About My Affair First
It’s Not Best-Practice to Use Your Business Coaching Time-Slot As Your Regularly Scheduled Time to Fornicate
Story – The man who wanted me to not tell his wife where he was
- This person has a coaching meeting at 11 AM. They were young and took over the business from their family.
- He was stressed with the workload and looking for assistance with running the business.
- He did not have a daily to do list or day planner. This resulted in him missing payroll for the entire team.
- Shows up to the meeting late…
- He calls one day and says he’s not going to be at the meeting, but asks me to say he’s at the meeting if his wife asks where he is.
- We start growing his company. Making outbound calls, gathering google reviews, etc. But after a while clients are getting upset and the bad reviews start pouring in.
- He eventually comes forward and states that he’s been having an affair because he thinks his wife is having an affair. His wife finally calls and ask if he was having an affair and I said “Yes”.
- Unfortunately, this guy also had a large family.
- If you know someone that is having an affair or being unfaithful to their spouse, RUN. It is very important to cut these kinds of people out of your life.
- 8 out of 10 people fail at life.
- Everybody has fire. That fire and energy is called Ambition – Every day you can set the world on fire.
- Or, you could use that same fire and burn your house down and ruin your life.
- Napoleon Hill – The Idea of Sex Transmutation: Sex Transmutation means the switching of the mind from thoughts of physical expression, to thoughts of some other nature.
- The Billy Graham Rule:
The Billy Graham rule is a practice among male evangelical Protestant leaders, in which they avoid spending time alone with women to whom they are not married.
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “It was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through.” – Zig Ziglar
FUN FACT – “78 percent of the men interviewed had cheated on their current partner.” – 5 Myths About Cheating – https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-cheating/2012/02/08/gIQANGdaBR_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.05ab54a87466
FUN FACT – “75% of employees steal from the workplace and most do so repeatedly.” – https://www.cbsnews.com/news/employee-theft-are-you-blind-to-it/
FUN FACT – “9 out of 10 small businesses fail.” – Forbes – https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilpatel/2015/01/16/90-of-startups-will-fail-heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-10/#2b8354336679
FUN FACT – “85% of job applicants lie on resumes.” – Inc Magazine – https://www.inc.com/jt-odonnell/staggering-85-of-job-applicants-lying-on-resumes-.html
FUN FACT – “66% of U.S. employees are disengaged (16% are actively disengaged).” – https://www.gallup.com/workplace/231668/dismal-employee-engagement-sign-global-mismanagement.aspx
Chapter 47 – If You Don’t Pay Uncle Sam You May End Up Wearing Orange
Don’t Get Your Tax Advice from the Isley Brothers, Wesley Snipes and Pete Rose
Story – The northern remodeler who became close and personal friends with his IRS agent
Overview to speaking Minnesotan:
- “Uff-da” – When you live in Minnesota you say the word “Uff-da” anytime that you are beginning to feel overwhelmed with the reality of the situation. If somebody has left meat in the fridge so long that it is growing mold and hair, you would say “Uff-da.” If you just found out that you owe a ton of money to the IRS you would say, “Uff-da.” If you would just discovered that something smells terrible and you are in a confined space like an elevator you would say, “Uff-da.”
- Pop – In many parts of the country, people refer to a carbonated beverage as “coke” or “soda,” however in Minnesota you must refer to favorite beverage of choice as “pop” or no one will know Minnesota bartender, waiter or waitress will know what you are talking about.
- Duck, duck, gray duck. – In every other part of America kids of all ages enjoy playing duck, duck, goose. However, in Minnesota, people play duck, duck, grey duck.
- Up north – If you live in Minnesota and you are traveling to your lake cabin or your lake house for the weekend you would tell everyone that you are going “Up North” regardless of what direction you are going.
- Oh yaw – This means that you just heard what was just said
- Dontcha know – This is a phrase that means absolutely nothing to anybody, but somehow has become an example phrase for Minnesotans to say quite often. It is akin to, “you know what I’m saying” in heavily populated urban areas.
- Hotdish – This is a meal that usually contains some type of starch, some type of meat, frozen vegetables and for a reason that I don’t understand, soup. Perhaps the most popular hotdish in Minnesota is Tater Tot Hotdish.
- Rhubarb – The thick leaf stalks of a cultivated plant of the dock family, which are reddish or green and eaten as a fruit after cooking.
- Prince – In Minnesota, it is universally accepted that most believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. However, Prince, is believed to be the sidekick of the Holy Trinity in Minnesota. In Minnesota, many equate the purple Prince to essentially be the sidekick of God, and almost like God’s version of Robin.
- Need a Push? In Minnesota whether you are driving a 4-wheel drive vehicle of a 2-wheel drive vehicle you will eventually get stuck in the snow. When living in Minnesota it is simply socially unacceptable to not pull over and to ask the person whose vehicle is stuck if they “need a push?”
- Oh for Cute! – If a Minnesotan is trying to explain to you that a puppy is really cute or a kitten is adorable or a little baby is gorgeous they would typically describe these things by saying, “Oh for cute.”
- It Could Be Worse – I’m not sure if it’s because Minnesota is incredibly bone-chilling and core-temperature altering cold during the winter or it’s because the people Minnesota have to endure so much weather-related adversity throughout the year, but when you ask someone in Minnesota how they are doing get ready to hear, “It could be worse.”
- That’s Interesting or That’s Different – In Minnesota most people will not typically be candid with you and say such candid and direct statements as, “You are 100% wrong,” or “that is scientifically not possible” so they typically just say, “Oh that’ interesting” or “that’s different” no matter how crazy what you just said them was.
- You Betcha! – In Minnesota this means I agree.
- Hoser – The word hoser is a derogatory term that originated from a Canadian Hockey tradition. Calling someone a “hoser” would be similar to calling someone an “idiot” or a “loser.” Before the invention of the Zamboni, the losing team had to hose down the ice after the game the remove the cuts in the ice caused by skating.
FUN FACT: “You have to hand it to Wesley Snipes for persistence. His various run-ins with the IRS haven’t gone so well over the years, and he now has another tax case loss to count. His latest loss was in U.S. Tax Court, which sided with the IRS. It was part of his running feud over old IRS bills that are still valid but that Snipes says he cannot pay. He offered a fraction, about $842,000 to wipe out $23.5 million, but the IRS said no.” – Wesley Snipes Loses $23.5 Million Tax Case, Offers IRS Tiny 4% Compromise by Robert Wood Forbes Contributor – https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2018/11/02/wesley-snipes-loses-23-5-million-tax-case-offers-irs-tiny-4-compromise/#140756b56321
FUN FACT: “In 2008, Snipes was convicted of three misdemeanor counts of failing to file tax returns. He got jail time, reporting to McKean Federal Correctional Institution on December 9, 2010. He finished at an adjacent minimum security Club Fed, and was released in April 2013. During 1999 through 2001, Snipes avoided $7 million in taxes by listening to an accountant and anti-tax advocate who claimed you did not legally have to pay taxes.” – Wesley Snipes Loses $23.5 Million Tax Case, Offers IRS Tiny 4% Compromise by Robert Wood Forbes Contributor – https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2018/11/02/wesley-snipes-loses-23-5-million-tax-case-offers-irs-tiny-4-compromise/#140756b56321
FUN FACT – “The Isley Brothers frontman Ronald Isley has been sentenced to three years and one month in prison for tax evasion. The 65-year-old R&B singer was also ordered to pay $3.1 million in back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Conte.” – https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/57330/isley-sentenced-to-prison-for-tax-evasion
FUN FACT: “Even after Rose pleaded guilty to federal tax-evasion charges in 1990 and spent five months in prison, his troubles didn’t stop there. In 2004 he was hit with a nearly $1 million lien for unpaid back taxes. Rose may have batted .303 in the majors, but when it comes to accounting, he strikes out every time.” – http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1891335_1891333_1891304,00.html
ACTION ITEM:
- Don’t misclassify your labor as contractors when they are really employees.
- Don’t attempt to write off items that are not tax deductible.
- Don’t listen to overly aggressive accountants, because it is you that will be liable not them.
- Don’t attempt to take an unreasonably low salary.
- Don’t attempt exPatriate your money or to renounce your citizenship in order to avoid paying Federal income taxes.
- Don’t pretend that 80% of your home is an office in the attempt to write it off.
- Don’t pretend that every family vacation is a “business trip” so that you can claim false deductions.
Chapter 48 – The Speaker Who Should Have Been Muted
When the Audience Doesn’t Like You, You Should Know Why
Story – Passionately wanting to become a speaker does take the place of preparation.
- Headshots
- PR Kit
- Gigmasters Account
- 10 Sample Videos of You Speaking
- Must Gather 25 Reviews on Gigmasters (or other 3rd party websites)
- Must Gather 100 Google Reviews
- Must Become a Great Speaker
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “If you feel deeply about your subject you will be able to think of little else. Concentration is a process of distraction from less important matters. It is too late to think about the cut of your coat when once you are upon the platform, so centre your interest on what you are about to say—fill your mind with your speech-material and, like the infilling water in the glass, it will drive out your unsubstantial fears.” – Dale Carnegie
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “There is only one excuse for a speaker’s asking the attention of his audience: he must have either truth or entertainment for them.” – Dale Carnegie
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “Practice, practice, practice in speaking before an audience will tend to remove all fear of audiences, just as practice in swimming will lead to confidence and facility in the water. You must learn to speak by speaking.” – Dale Carnegie
Speaking 101:
- Rapport – The audience must trust and like you – 2 minutes
- Needs – The audience must be introduced to a problem that they want to solve – 5 minutes
- Benefits – You must present specific solutions that are supported by hard facts
- Close – You must tell the audience what they must do as a result of his speech
Speech Writing 101:
- Have 3 to 5 points and support each point with the following four legs:
- Facts / Statistics
- Quotes
- Stories
- Action Steps
- Have a purple cow. You must stand out in the field of brown cows. Dress intentionally, wow the audience, and be 10 times more knowledgeable about your subject than anyone else. If you haven’t prepared everyone will know.
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “ All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.” – Proverbs 14:23
Chapter 49 – Refusing to Use a No-Brainer While Your Business Remains a Money Drainer is Not Smart
Nothing Cheapens Your Brand More Than Declaring Bankruptcy
Story – The business owner who wanted to hide behind their history of success while ignoring the exponential shrinking of her current business
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.” – Jack Welch (The former CEO of GE who grew the company by 4,000% during his tenure)
AMPLE EXAMPLES:
- The lobby was last updated in 1985.
- The website looks like it was made by the same people who designed Pacman and Oregon Trail.
- The products being sold only appealed to people that are no longer living.
- The signage looked as though it has survived a bombing.
Chapter 50 – The Leader Who Was Loathed
Treating Your Team Like They Are Morons is Not Healthy
Story – The business owner who had the initiative of the month, 0% follow through, rewards that no one wanted and punitive penalties that inspired hatred amongst the ranks.
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.” – John D. Rockefeller (The wealthiest man in the world who grew up poor and did not ever earn a college degree)
ACTION ITEMS:
- Daily key performance indicators for every employee (revenue generating activities)
- Best-practice sales scripts
- Best-practice recorded audio and video samples and examples
- Best-practice shadow system
- Daily follow-up
- Define the reward (carrots) for success
- Define a (penalty) stick that people don’t want
- Supply inspiration
Audio Transcription
