Business | How to Find Your Niche and How to Differentiate Your Business In a Crowded Marketplace

All right, Thrive Nation. On today’s show, we’re joined by a real client. He’s not a hologram. I’ve known him, I believe, for almost a decade. Brett Denton, welcome onto the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir?

Yes man, I think it’s been… It feels like forever with you, Clay, because you go like a million miles an hour, so it’s more like a century. But yes, it’s been a little over a decade now. I’m doing great.

It’s awesome. And how I first started working with you, I believe, is working with your company called Kvell Fit. Can you tell everybody out there, what is Kvell Fit and what kind of work did we do to help you grow that business?

Yes, so I actually had heard about you on the John Lee Dumas podcast and we were in the process of looking for a coach, at the time, I had a partner and we were looking to expand and grow our fitness company, so it’s a brick and mortar fitness company. We do boutique personal training, boutique group training, and we were looking to implement systems. We were really trying to take it one step further, start expanding, start growing. We’re at one facility at the time, and so we were just looking for somebody with a little bit more knowledge on how to help us do that, how to build the systems to be able to scale.

Now, every client that I work with, what I try to do is help them break down this complicated thing called success and turn it into core, repeatable, actionable processes. Things that I affectionately call crap, core, repeatable, actionable processes. So to grow Kvell… If we can go back to that for a second, to grow Kvell, it’s a gym. Can you tell everybody out there, what are the services that Kvell Fit did provide and currently does provide?

Yes, so when we had come on with you, I think the only thing that we were providing was group fitness training and maybe a little bit of nutrition. This current juncture, we provide personal training, we provide group fitness training, we provide nutrition and challenges, and this is pre Covid, we actually had grown using your tutelage to two facilities and a third one in the works. And so again, relying on the systems and processes and the boring things. At this point, I tell people it’s all the boring things that you taught us that really make the difference in our scalability.

Now I have a visual diagram I’m going to pull up and I use the same system with every business I’m involved in. And so it’s a way to take out of my brain maybe the system and make it where everyone can see it. And I don’t hide the system. I teach it to people. Box number one, we have to figure out your revenue goals. And I know working with you with Kvell, if we go back over a decade, you had revenue goals in your mind. Box two, we have to know how many customers we need to break even. Why is it so important for the listeners out there to know how many customers they need to break even?

Well, just from my experience, if you don’t know how many customers you need to break even, you don’t know how much to charge. You don’t know how to watch your expenses, you don’t really have a good hold on your business. It’s like flying a plane without looking at the panel, you don’t know your elevation, you don’t know where you are in sky, you don’t know where the ground is. And so if you don’t really know that break even, then how are you going to know if you’re making money or not?

Now, box three, you and I have never really had to talk about this box too much, but some entrepreneurs want to have massive success without putting in massive amount of work. We’ve never had to figure out how many hours per week you’re willing to work. You’re a guy that was a walk-on football player that ended up earning a spot on the roster there in division one football. You started a business from nothing. But a lot of people do need a little pushing on that. Now, box number four is determining your unique value proposition. And I would argue that at Kvell Fit, you weren’t the first guy to develop the idea of a group fitness class, but we had to find a way to help Kvell stand out in the cluttered marketplace. Can you talk about the importance of having a coach work with you to figure out how you could stand out in the cluttered marketplace?

Yes, I think having a coach in general helps you see the forest for the trees or the trees for the forest, depending on what issue you’re having. And this is a big issue in the fitness space. In the fitness space, like many spaces, it’s very competitive. There’s a new fitness franchise popping up it seems like every other month. And so if you don’t really understand what your value is and why you’re unique in the marketplace, it’s really hard to compete and just be another gym or another personal trainer or another, whatever your widget is. And so I think, again, having a coach be able to see outside of what you can’t see because you’re in your business on a day-to-day basis and try to pull that out of what you currently offer or offer something new, I think is invaluable.

Now improving your branding, whether it’s dog training or now you’re selling logs too. You’re selling logs. No matter what business you’re involved in, the branding has to be great. Brett, you recently purchased a new business. Could you tell us about your new company, sir?

Yes, so I purchased Sawtooth Wood products. We sell logs, we do fencing. We’re a contractor, we sell power equipment. Well, again and again, it gets into a little bit of the commodity business. I would argue fitness is a commodity at this point too. And so you really got to, number one, define your niche. So what’s your value proposition? Then number two, is your branding better than your competition? And this is something that we continue to work on every single week, every single month because everything continues to evolve. And so we continue to want to look better. And with our new business a little bit with Kvell Fitness too, but we really cater to the high end clientele, so the ultra, the affluent. And so if our brand doesn’t look on par with what they’re used to, we’re going to lose business. And so we got to make sure that that branding looks the part.

Now did you decide to go with a website for Sawtooth Wood products or do you decide to market primarily via fax machine?

Yes, fax machine. We’re flying the airplanes in the sky around the city is actually too. No, we got to have a website. And the website is ultra important, not only again, the look and the feel of it, but also are we ranking? And again, this is something that we actually had no clue about before we started with Clay. And since we started with Clay, the search engine optimization SEO, which I’d never heard the term before, the importance of the Google map and how to optimize that. How else do we get people to our website? Because a website is great and it can look as pretty as you want it to look, but at the end of the day, if nobody’s coming to the website, it’s not doing you good either anyway. So we needed to look the party and we need to drive people there.

Now we work with you with three brands right now. We work with Kvell Fit, we work with Tip Top K9, you’re a franchisee and we work with SawToothWoodProducts.com. Can you share with the listeners out there, we’re going to go to this next box here, why is it important that as your marketing that you actually ask people or that your team asks people over the phone how they heard about you? Why is that so important that it’s Sawtooth or Tip Top or that Kvell? Why is it important that you don’t just rely on what people check on the form and that you actually ask people how they heard about you?

Well, the way that I’ve understood marketing to work is people have to see you multiple times. So they might see, let’s take Tip Top, for example. So the Tip Top cars are wrapped, they’re bright, they’re yellow, so they might see the car and then they might see one of our Google Ads, and then their friend might say, “Hey, I use Tip Top.” And then all of a sudden they see on Facebook and then finally they click the link. And the one thing that they remember is maybe the Facebook. And so we want to ask them, because then we can have that conversation with them. And then instead of it just being one answer, we can say, “Oh, there’s actually four things. We need to make sure that we keep those four things going. Keep continuing to spend marketing dollars on those things instead of just getting rid of all the rest.”

So let’s say everybody started coming in through Facebook. Now we probably need to pay attention to that, but at the end of the day, if you’re not having those conversations, you might start to realize, they’re actually searching us on Google and then everybody’s going to our Facebook page, and that’s just how they come into us, and that’s the last thing they remember.

Now, this next box here is again, we have sales conversion, sales scripts, recorded calls, one sheets. If you’re listening today folks, you got to have sales scripts, recorded calls, one sheets. Now the next box is you have to determine how much it costs you to get a customer. And I don’t care whether it’s Kvell Fit or Tip Top, you have to ask the question, how much money am I spending on advertising and how many leads am I getting? And so if you’re spending $350 a week on ads and you’re getting 10 leads, then you’re spending $35 per lead. Why is it important that on a weekly basis that you hop on a coaching call, whether it be for Tip Top K9 or Sawtooth, and you take that moment to look at your numbers and go, how much am I spending per lead?

Well, there’s a few reasons. Number one, if you don’t really have a coach to do that, coming from the fitness space, there’s very few people who do what they know they should be doing on a weekly basis unless they have an accountability person there, whether it be a personal trainer, a business coach, whatever it is. And so those things that we know we should do, but they aren’t that sexy, they’re not that fun. Those are really the things that a coach is probably most valuable in helping hold you accountable to. And so every week we look at those numbers to make sure where am I at? How’s my business doing? How much money am I spending on marketing? How much do I have coming back in? Am I losing money? Am I making money? Et cetera. Dan Kennedy talks a lot about the fact that if you can spend more than your competitors to win customers, you’re going to win for your industry. And so again, if you don’t look at your numbers, you don’t know how much you’re spending on leads, you got no clue what’s going on.

In 10 years, we’ve never talked about Dan Kennedy, but I’ll say I love Dan Kennedy because he is a very realistic author and he’s not telling people how to make a million dollars in seven minutes. He’s not trying to teach people that the Google algorithm algorithm is dramatically trenched. He is not a get rich quick guy. Dan Kennedy’s a process guy, and I really love that. And I want to show people this. If anybody goes to Elephant In The Room, EITR our lounge.com, and you were to buy an Elephant In The Room franchise, a couple of things, it’s going to cost you a lot of money. And why? Because you have to build a physical location, you got to build an actual store. We cut hair. So you got to open up a location, you got to open up a shop, you got to do the build outs, you got to do the shampoo rooms, the front entry.

And maybe you’re out there and you’re listening and you’re a skilled builder, but every store I’ve done costs me hundreds of thousands of dollars to build out. And so when I was opening up the Elephant In The Room franchises, I told you, I remember saying this to you. I said, “You don’t want to buy an Elephant In The Room. No, you don’t because it’s going to cost so much money to do it.” Now, the systems we have are great, but I think a Tip Top K9 would be great for you and your sister. It’s the same systems and the processes that we’ve built for all my companies, but I think it’s a move because it’s under 60 grand to get started. All the systems are there.

I’m just showing you if you buy an Elephant, the Room franchise, these are all the documents you have, all the processes, and you pretty much knew, if you built Tip Top K9 processes, they’re going to run the same as Elephant In The Room and they’re going to run the same as Kvell and it’s going to be a thing. Can you talk about the importance in your decision to buy a Tip Top K9, how important it was knowing that we were using the same systems that we had used to build Elephant In The Room and the other companies that we’d coached you with?

Yes. And so we had been looking for a way to expand and to grow outside of our fitness business. I was looking for something my sister could do, and I had come to you multiple times about Elephant In The Room. And every time you just said, “Hey, I don’t recommend it, but why don’t you come and you visit one and you work through it and figure out if that’s something you want to do, figure if that’s how much you want to spend, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.” And then Tip Top came along and it made a lot more sense. We had the processes in place just like we did with Elephant In The Room. And so I knew that I could take that, give it to my sister, and then she would then be successful just by running the systems.

And I wouldn’t be so far in the hole like I would with an Elephant In The Room, and we could start it out of her house and then eventually build a facility, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And again, it was all based on those systems. And that’s the only reason, frankly, that we decided to do it. So same thing, we went and we visited Tip Top, we worked through it with them, we worked through with Clay, what the systems were going to look like, how it was all going to function. And without the systems, there’s no way we would’ve done it. We were both jumping into… My sister was jumping from a real estate career to a dog training career. And so without the systems in place there, there’s no way I would’ve spent the money on it. And it’s cheaper than an Elephant In The Room, but you’re still dropping some change. So.

Now when you buy a franchise, you got these systems. So box 10, you got to manage, you got to hold people accountable. And I think that’s really the value of the coaching system. And that’s why when somebody goes to TipTopK9.com and requests a franchise, I feel like they’re going to have success. I feel comfortable selling it. I feel comfortable talking about it because I know that if you buy a Tip Top K9 franchise, you won’t throw a gutter ball because someone’s going to hold you accountable to doing the tasks on a weekly basis. And Brett, you’ve seen this in the fitness space, and we’ve talked about this, if you’re not careful focusing on the things that grow your company, you get distracted on things that don’t matter. And in the fitness space particularly, there’s always a new way to track Google leads.

There’s a new way to optimize the website. The algorithms have changed. There’s a new hiring process. ZipRecruiter has found a way to find the best employees, but if you’re not careful, Brett, there’s a fad of the week, a fad of the year, a fad of the month. I’d love to get your thoughts on that of what would a Tip Top K9 franchise look like in your mind if you didn’t have that weekly accountability to hold someone accountable to following the systems?

Well, the problem with most business owners as you know, Clay, is the shiny object syndrome. And I had it probably worse than anything. I’m still recovering from it. But I think that’s one of the things that you had taught me is with the weekly meetings, it keeps us on path and it keeps us focused on the things we need to be focused on. Because there’s all kinds of other BS that you could focus on that don’t really grow your business, and marketers are good, and the sales reps are good, and they all sound great, but at the end of the day, it’s the simple things that you do over and over again, the boring things that you do over and over again but…

Again, I’ll go back to personal training because it’s similar. If you don’t work out, if you don’t have a personal trainer to hold you accountable to work out, you’re not going to get results. If you don’t eat the right foods with a personal trainer holding you accountable, you’re not going to get results. And so it’s the same with coaching, it’s the same in Tip Top, it’s the same in Kvell. It’s the same as Sawtooth without the coach helping you. The systems don’t mean anything if you don’t implement them. And so without the coach making sure that you’re implementing those systems, it doesn’t work.

Now I’m going to pull this up here as we wrap up this particular session here, Brett, is you want to create a sustainable and repetitive weekly schedule. In the fitness business, if you grab a new client that goes to Kvellfit.com to sign up for training, and you were like… I know you don’t do this, but imagine you did. And by the way, Tip Top K9, it’s a dollar for the first lesson. Kvell Fit, it’s a dollar to start the body transformation program. A lot of analogous systems that if you go to Elephant In The Room, it’s a dollar. You see a lot of these systems. Brett, I imagine you told somebody, “Now Sarah, we’re going to work out every third Monday at 7:00 AM. Now every second Tuesday at 8:00 PM and every fourth Thursday at 7:00 AM and there’s only 17 things I want you to remember. There’s 17 things to remember.”

And every week the schedule changed, and every week the workout changed, and every week the diet plan changed. What would happen to your fitness clients? Because you’ve produced so many successful before and after clients at Kvell. What would happen if you changed the workout time on somebody every week, changed the fitness program every week, and then brought in a new guest speaker to pontificate about their theories about what could be a successful fitness regimen? What would happen?

Well, frankly, I think that’s what most people try to do until they determine that that doesn’t work. And then they go find a coach and stick with that one coach. We always tell our people like, “Hey, you got to find a plan. If it’s our plan, great. We think our plan’s the best. But if it’s not our plan, then great. But whatever you do, find a plan. Stick with that plan.” What is it always you say, Clay, focus. What is focus again?

Focus on core tasks until success.

That’s it. And so it’s the same thing. Find one plan, one nutrition plan, one workout plan, and work on it until you’ve come to the end of that plan, you’ve achieved some results there. And you can’t get anything more out of that plan, which most plans and fitness and in business, they work forever and your business just keeps getting better and better and better, or your body keeps getting better and better and better.

Now, Brett, final question. I want to ask you this because fitness, in my opinion, is very similar to business coaching. One of my great clients, I won’t mention his names, I don’t have permission to do so, but he tells his clients, “Listen, if you sign up for my fitness program, my one-on-one training program, you can eat meat, you can eat vegetables and only drink water, and if you do that and follow my program, you’ll have success. But if you don’t do that…” Now this is kind of a boutique business. He says, “If you don’t do that…” And he wants you to track your meals, “I’m going to charge you double for your personal training and it’s going to be in the contract, so you’re going to only eat meat, only have vegetables, only have water.”

He says, “Clay, my clients, they have dramatic results.” And he says, “But the thing is, they get a little frustrated with me that I’m not open to new ideas and they bring in magazines and they go, hey, here’s a new magazine I just read. This is a new way to help people improve their metabolism. This is a new approach.” And he says, “Even though they’re getting results, they always want a new approach.” Do you see that in fitness where clients, even though they’re getting results, they want a new approach? Do you see that?

Yes, always. It’s a boredom factor and again, the things that you need to do to get results aren’t sexy. It’s just a matter of doing the same thing over and over and over and over again and making sure that those are the right things. But almost invariably at some point they’re going to get bored and want to try something else.

Three rapid fire questions. If people want to buy copious amounts of logs from you, what’s the website they need to go to buy copious amounts of logs from you, sir?

It’s SawTooth Wood products like a saw that you saw trees with. Sawtoothwoodproducts.com, that’s on. Fencing and tree and log business.

For anybody out there who’s thinking about buying a franchise, what do you think the importance is of having weekly coaching, I guess specifically under the Tip Top K9 mindset, because you own a Tip Top K9, what’s the importance of coaching, sir, weekly coaching?

In my opinion, anybody who wants to perform at a high level in whatever it is you want to perform at, you need a coach. And it’s not always that the coach is smarter than you. Sometimes they are, sometimes they have systems and stuff, but really it’s accountability. Are you showing up on a weekly, monthly, whatever it is that the arrangement is? Without it, you’re just not going to perform at your best in business and fitness and sports, whatever it is.

And then what are your thoughts on Andrew? I’ve worked with you personally for 10 years. How would you describe Andrew’s consulting or coaching? Because I’ve worked with you personally and we only take on 160 clients. So Andrew works with your sister and with the Tip Top K9 brand. How would you describe your experience working with Andrew?

Andrew is a very positive guy. I’ve never seen the guy in a bad mood, frankly. But again, he focuses on the basics and he focuses on the basics in a way that can be annoying and irritating to the point of like, all right, I get it, I just need to do the basics. But he knows the system like the back of his hand. He knows what works, he knows what people should be doing. And so I’ve had no complaints with Andrew. I think he’s been a great coach.

Brett Denton, I really do appreciate you carving out time to be here with us today. That wasn’t a wood related pun, but I also encourage people to check out your Sawtooth Wood products and what service area do you provide logs to, sir? What are the service areas?

So at the moment, maybe we can scale at some point, but we’re new in the industry here, so we’re mainly in the Sun Valley area. We could ship logs everywhere, but we’re mainly in Sun Valley area, Idaho Ski Resort town situation.

Brett Denton, thank you for carving out time. Have a great day, sir. We’ll talk to you soon.

I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark.

Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15, thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us.

This is our old house. This is where we used to live few years ago. This is our old neighborhood.

See? It’s nice.

So this is my old van and our old school marketing, and this is our old team. And by team, it’s me and another guy.

This is our new house with our new neighborhood.

This is our new van with our new marketing, and this is our new team. We went from four to 14 and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome. But Ryan is a really great salesman, so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts, and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year.

In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October, it’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you times a thousand.

So we really just want to thank you Clay, and thank you Vanessa for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys.

At Thrive Nation, years ago, I had a young lady in my office by the name of Kat, and Kat was a Graphic Designer, and I was working with a client that was training dogs. So if you could picture this, folks, I’m working with a company that’s training dogs, and I have an employee by the name of Kat. And Kat asked me, she said, “Clay, with this Tip Top K9 business that you’re helping to grow and franchise, I’m seeing the growth, I might be interested in opening a Tip Top K9 franchise. And that’s kind of how that conversation went is how I can remember. But I wanted to interview the man married to the cat, Adam Stockdale, welcome on the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir?

Oh, doing great, Clay. Always good to talk to you.

Hey, so can you tell the story of how you first heard about a Tip Top K9 franchise opportunity?

Yes. That was about five, six years ago. My wife Kat talked me into getting a cute little puppy, and that cute little puppy decided to use me as a chew toy. So at the same time, she was working on some marketing materials for Tip Top K9, the original location in Tulsa. And it wasn’t too long after that that we hired them to train our own dog. And when Ryan was over, I was very impressed with the surfaces, the company in general. And he can verify this at the consultation, I actually said, “I think I’m in the wrong business.” So six, seven months later when I heard through you that they were looking to expand through the franchise model, it wasn’t too hard of a decision for me to say, sign me up.

Now you own the Tip Top K9 franchise. What are the territories that you own at this point? The cities or the territories that you guys have rights to?

Yes. So we have four main service areas all within the Dallas Fort Worth area. First one that we opened up about five years ago was the South Lake location, South Lake, Texas, just for Yata Towners that is between Dallas and Fort Worth. So you got Fort Worth on the west, you got Dallas on the east. So South Lake is to the north even though it says south north of Dallas and Fort Worth in the middle.

And before becoming a Tip Top K9 franchise owner, you were in the mortgage business. Is that correct?

That is correct.

And so my understanding is after… I know you guys asked me a lot of questions about it, I know your wife asked me a lot of questions about it. You guys met with Ryan and Rachel and you decided to move forward. Could you explain what those six weeks of hands-on training was like? Because for somebody out there listening right now that’s maybe thinking about buying a Tip Top K9 franchise and they should know what that experience was like, what were those first six weeks of hands-on dog training like?

Yes, Clay. So Tip Top K9 has a training service that they call Doggy Bootcamp where they take your dog and train them intensively for several weeks and then they come back different and better dog. I’d say it’s the exact same process the franchisees go through. It’s definitely a bootcamp. It is morning to night, it is six days a week for about six weeks. But by the end of that, you’re going to be very comfortable with the training process and you’re going to feel like you are well-equipped to go out and start training dogs on your own.

So you did this and Rachel and Ryan, I feel like they do a great job training people on how to train dogs and Ryan does a really good job teaching the sales aspect of it. And you do a great job because you come from a sales background. So you’re down there in Texas now, and for somebody out there that’s thinking about owning a Tip Top, once you know how to train a dog and you’ve paid all the money up front to auto wrap your car and to go to the six weeks of training, now you’re down in Texas, you’re running the business. And I really wanted to identify what you believe to be maybe the three or four biggest drivers of the growth. Because my understanding, I could be wrong, but I think your official title this year is you were the franchise of the year of both this year and last year. Is that accurate?

Out of the years they’ve been doing the franchise of the year award, we won half of them.

So-

We got this [inaudible 00:26:55] year, then the year before that.

… You were this year’s franchise of the year. What do you believe to be the fourth things that you have to do on a weekly basis beyond training dogs that allows your location to not only survive but to thrive?

So number one, the most important underlying theme in all this is going to be consistency. So the thing that I really loved about the Tip Top K9 model is that you do not have to arrange your own calendar. We have a scheduling center that’s going to call and book leads for you and set up your schedule every day. And really half the battle, especially when you’re starting out, is just showing up. The dog training world is not on average a super sophisticated crowd. So if you just show up to your appointment, you’re already in the top 20% of the dog training world. So showing up, being consistent, being on time, being where you say you’re going to be when you say you’re going to be there, that would be the first thing.

Second of all is being able to effectively train people. This is a very physically challenging business. You’re only going to be able to do so much on your own. You’re going to have to hire people. And the faster you train those people, the faster you’re going to be able to grow. So one, be consistent. Lead by example, do what you say you’re going to. Two is train people. Three is assisting the office lead generation. There’s a lot being taken care of on the back end. Clay’s team is doing a lot of search engine optimization. The team is booking incoming calls. How you’re going to help with that is by going around to places that can refer you dog training and just once again, being consistent with those relationships. So that looks like veterinarians, for example, you’re going into veterinarians offices, you’re saying hi, you’re doing that for a couple of weeks in a row. Then you’re asking to sit down with the vet, talk to them about the training, and then you’re going to start getting referrals.

And just the past week in one of our locations, we got four vet referrals, and that’s just in one of our four locations. So that’s a big driver of business. And then just putting in the time. When you’re starting out, it is a pretty grueling schedule. It’s 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM seven days a week, and if you don’t have somebody to help you work in those hours, then those are the hours you’re working. So it’s by no means easy money, but if you do it and you approach it with the right mindset, it can be very good money.

Now, what would happen if you stopped doing the group interview every week? And on part two of today’s show, we’re going to talk about the group interview process. What would happen if you stopped doing the weekly group interview?

So if we stopped doing the weekly group interview, we would be totally fine for about two months, and then we would start having natural turnover. Maybe somebody was good, maybe they’re not good anymore. And then if you don’t have somebody to replace them, then now you are having to do their job. And if you’re doing their job, nobody’s doing your job, which is training people. So you’re going to find yourself trying to do two jobs and then somebody else is going to drop, or you’re doing three jobs and you’re just not going to be able to find good people to come in. If you’re not doing the group interview, you’re going to hire somebody on desperation. It’s going to be the wrong person, and you’re just going to exacerbate that turnover problem.

Now what if you stopped getting Google reviews from your happy customers? You guys are very consistent at gathering objective reviews from happy customers. What would happen if you stopped getting Google reviews?

So there’s a very specific type of person that’s going to leave a Google Review without asking, and those typically are not the people you want leaving Google reviews. So that is what you’re going to get by default. So that is gravity that is pulling you down. What you need are the rocket boosters of intentionally gathering reviews from your real and happy customers in order to launch you into orbit.

Now the next is video reviews. You guys do a great job gathering video reviews from your happy customers. And what I’ve heard from many of the franchisees, because I talk to many of you every week, is that potential buyers will come to you already convinced that Tip Top K9 is the right choice if they’ve read enough reviews and watched the video reviews. What impact does video reviews play in the business itself?

So video reviews just puts a face to the name. We have hundreds and hundreds I think between our location, we have over 1,000 five star Google reviews. And I still get people at a consultation and be like, “But do you have any references?” It’s one thing to see a name with a review next to it. It’s another name to see the face of somebody talking at you. So the video reviews, it gives you more of that personal feel as somebody’s story. You get to see that they’re a real person with a real dog that’s really trained.

Now the Dream 100, again, this is where you make a list of your ideal and likely referral sources, dog groomers, veterinarians. What would happen if you never visited the Dream 100 list by default? What would happen?

There’s a lot of people that are going to find you online on Google. If you get all your reviews and you have good search engine optimization, you’re going to dominate the search results. There is a significant portion of your market that just isn’t relying on Google for this type of thing. So people really love their dogs. It’s a very emotional topic. So with emotional topics, people are talking to their friends, other people they trust. Veterinarians are a big source of trust. So if you are not getting those veterinarian groomer referrals, you’re not aligning yourself with these authorities in the space, then those people are just never going to hear about you because it doesn’t even occur to them to go online and search about this because they’re going to ask their vet who to go through.

Now, both you and I are very efficient individuals. So we typically, we hop on a weekly coaching call, if it needs to be longer, it’s longer, but it’s usually a touchpoint like a 10 minute, let’s make sure things are not drifting. How important is it to have somebody like Andrew who’s following up every week just to make sure that videos get uploaded, that the ads are running? How important is that weekly call to keep things running?

There’s really no substitute for it. You check on things you care about and I care about the business. So that’s just our time to really make sure we’re being accountable for our portion of things. Accountability is a huge part of this because it’s easy to just get busy and let these things drift over time.

Now I have worked in the franchise space quite a bit outside of Tip Top K9. I’ve worked with brands like Oxy Fresh or EXP, Realty. I’ve worked with UPS franchises, just a lot of them. And what I find is a lot of times there are certain franchise programs that have a quarterly coaching call. So you basically talk to your coach once a quarter or once a month. Why do you believe it’s an important thing for the culture to have a weekly touchpoint as opposed to a quarterly or monthly touchpoint?

So I am involved in several businesses and every business I’m involved in there is a weekly call because I would not be involved in a business that did not have a weekly touchpoint, especially during the startup phase. It’s vital because if you’re doing something wrong, you’re going to be able to catch it early and correct it. So go ahead.

[inaudible 00:35:17] if it’s weekly, you can catch it early incorrect. Is that what you’re saying?

Yes. If you’re going off course, it’s better to go of course a little bit than a lot.

Now, the other thing I wanted to bring up is I knew your wife very well because she worked in the office and she knew me because she worked on my payroll so we had that friendship there. And you also, that camaraderie, you were the wild card. I didn’t quite know about you, but your wife was like, “No, he’s a great guy.” I remember in my case, I’m looking into selling a franchise to you. I don’t want to sell a franchise to somebody that won’t put in the work. And on your case as a buyer, you don’t want to buy a franchise system that won’t work. So what were some of the decision points that you went through to decide whether buying a Tip Top K9 was right for you?

One thing I definitely wanted, really one of the huge driving factors of decision for me, was the scheduling center at Tip Top K9. So with me coming from a mortgage industry, I was the frontline. Somebody had questions, somebody needed to talk to somebody. That was me they were talking to. And it made it difficult to focus on my work because I was just fielding calls all day with Tip Top K9, you do have a scheduling at that center there for you. They’re talking to customers, they’re collecting payments, they’re doing a lot of the day-to-day administrative stuff that would really just take hours out of your day and bog you down. So the fact that we had that at our disposal already included the franchise fee was just absolutely massive.

And just recap it, I want to make sure the listeners out there get this, if they’re thinking about buying a Tip Top K9, the key drivers to success is one, you’re saying you wouldn’t be involved in an organization if it didn’t have a weekly call for accountability. Is that correct?

Yes, absolutely.

Second, is really, the call center was a big appeal for you, is that correct? We wanted to have a call center that handles a lot of that admin.

Oh, huge. 100%

Three, you got the group interview. Four, you got the Google Reviews. Five, you got the video reviews. Six, you got that Dream 100 marketing. And then seven, our team runs the online ads for you to make sure that they’re never off and to make sure the retargeting ads are happening. And we’re also writing search engine content for you behind the scenes. How valuable is it to do that as opposed to you having to write search engine content every day?

Oh, it would be impossible. It wouldn’t get done. I can just tell you, there’s no world in which myself or really any other franchisee trying to run this kind of business be able to do that.

And then Andrew is not here, so we can say something nice about him and we’ll see if he watches this show, we’ll find out. But Andrew has been on my team for years, and I know he loves serving you guys, but how would you describe what it’s like to have a point person like Andrew to help you with the account if there’s a burning fire?

So it’s really nice to know that you have somebody that’s on your team and is knowledgeable enough. He’s seen it before. So if you come on, you buy a Tip Top K9 franchise, you’re not the first one. The problems, any issues you run into, you’re not going to be the first one having these issues. Andrew’s seen it before and he is been able to help other locations through it before. So just having that experience on your side is huge. It just gives you a little bit of peace of mind.

Now we do have a lot of listeners that are in the Texas area, so again, what are the cities you cover? If anybody out there is listening has a dog, they want to have you guys train?

For sure. Pretty much anywhere on the north side of Dallas Fort Worth. So we’ve got all of Fort Worth, we’ve got South Lake which kind of between Dallas and Fort Worth, and we’ve got McKinney and [inaudible 00:39:00], which are the north side of Dallas.

Adam, I really do appreciate you. You’ve been a great friend and it’s wonderful to see you and your wife thriving. Congratulations again on winning the franchise of the year again, and I appreciate your diligence. It’s fun to work with you, sir. We’ll talk to you soon.

All right, thanks, Clay. I’ll see you.

Take care.

Bye.

Wow. See… And the good folks at Tip Top K9 helped mentor you into your dog training skillset. Am I correct? Is that right?

Yes, that’s right. No, I had all the full training-

Wow.

… With Roddy and he would’ve eaten you, Clay. If you were here in person, he would’ve just ripped an arm off. You’ve got to be careful.

Now we’re going to move into the heavier stuff here, now that we’ve covered that. But I want to make sure from an animal cruelty perspective, you weren’t using a part of a dog as a windscreen. One thing, and it’s super self-serving because I have partnered with the brand and have worked with the brand for a long time. Mike, I just wanted to ask you here, feel free to punt if you want, but the good folks at Tip Top K9, why I like them is they’re providing opportunities for people that don’t want to take the jab.

So if you have a job but you don’t want to take the jab, I think that’s going to be an increasingly difficult thing to find. And so if you’re looking for a career that doesn’t require the taking of the COVID-19 shots, the good folks at Tip Top K9, they have a six-week training program where in six weeks, you can learn how to open your own Tip Top K9 franchise. They’re approaching 20 locations all over the country. Mike, you’ve worked with the Tip Top folks. Has your dog eaten you yet? Are you happy with the service? How’s it been going so far?

Tip Top K9 is just amazing. Really interacting with those folks and getting this dog changed my life. That’s not an exaggeration. And I just want to put this offer out there to anybody listening who wants to consider opening a Tip Top K9 franchise.

Once you open a franchise, I will announce it for free. I’ll publicize it on my podcast because what I learn from these guys, it’s so life changing. I’m training my other dogs, Clay, now that I learned, let let me back up… So Tip Top K9 people trained me first of all on how to train dogs, including this military dog I have here.

Wow.

And then I took that knowledge and now I’m training my other dogs who I thought were uncontrollable. And now guess what? They come when I call them. It’s amazing. Using the training techniques, even a guy like me who’s not a professional dog trainer, even I’m competent at training my own dogs now, but this is a great opportunity. In any city in America that’s available for the franchises, people want to bring their dogs and have them trained because more people are working at home.

More lockdowns are probably coming, God forbid, but people need to be able to get along with their pets. And Tip Top K9 really is effective at making that happen. That’s just my testimonial right there. Feel free to use it.

Mike Adams, thank you so much for carving out time, I really do appreciate you very much. Your studio is looking great there, sir, I know it’s been a long time coming. You’ve been one of the first truth telling voices in the movement, one of the most heavily censored people in America, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you for investing in lighting and sound that makes you look better.

Well see, we’re giving you our wide shot here right now. This is the wide shot of the studio. Just-

You look great.

… To show you. It’s real. It’s not a green screen. No, we’re actually-

No, you look good.

So-

It looks great, Mike.

It’s coming along. Yours has always looked awesome, but we finally upgraded to Clay’s level of studio.

Mike, seriously, I say this, any of the events that if we ever do a Reawaken America tour, the door’s always open for you. I appreciate all the work you do behind the scenes, keeping people focused on exposing the truth. You really are a leader in the truth movement. I appreciate that, sir. I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Well, thank you, Clay. We’re working at it. And again, keep me posted if anybody joins the Tip Top K9 franchise, we want to announce it and help get all these dogs under control all across America so they don’t eat our microphones and things like that. It’s almost [inaudible 00:43:02].

Hey, thank you. I appreciate it. Take care.

Thank you, Clay. All right, bye.

Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpy with Tip Top K9 and I’m the Founder.

I’m Rachel Wimpy, and I am a Co-Founder.

So we’ve been running Tip Top for about the last 14 years, franchising for the last three, four years. So someone that’d be a good fit for Tip Top loves dogs, they’re high energy. They want to be able to own their own job, but they don’t want to worry about that high failure rate. They want to do that bowling with bumper lanes.

So you give us a call, reach out to us and we’ll call you and then we’ll send you an FTD, look over that, read it, fall asleep to it, it’s very boring. And then we’ll book a discovery day and you come and then we spend a day or two with us. Make sure that you actually it. Make sure your training dogs is something that you want to do.

So an FTD is a Franchise Disclosure Document. It’s a federally regulated document that goes into all the nitty-gritty details of what the franchise agreement entails.

So who would be a good fit to buy a Tip Top K9 would be somebody who loves dogs, who wants to work with dogs all day as their profession. You’ll make a lot of money, you’ll have a lot of fun. It’s very rewarding. And who would not be a good fit is a cat person.

So the upfront cost for Tip Top is $43,000. And a lot of people say they’re generating doctor money, but on our disclosure, the numbers are anywhere from over a million dollars a year in dog training. What our Oklahoma City location did last year to 25, 35 grand a month.

To get trained by us for Tip Top K9 to run your own Tip Top K9, you would be with us for six weeks here in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

So we’ve been married for seven years.

Eight years.

Eight years. So if you’re watching this video, you’re like, “Hey, maybe I want to be a dog trainer. Hey, that one sounds super amazing.” Go to our website, TipTopK9.com, click on the yellow franchising tab, fill out the form. And Rachel and I’ll give you a call. Our Oklahoma City location last year they did over a million dollars. He’s been running that shop for three years before he was a youth pastor with zero sales experience, zero dog training experience before he ever met with us.

So just call us, come spend a day with us, spend a couple of days with us, make sure you like training dogs and own your own business.

Well, the biggest reason to buy a Tip Top K9 is so you own your own job and you own your own future, and you don’t hate your life. You get an enjoyable job that brings a lot of income, but is really rewarding.

Hello, my name is Charles Kola with Kola Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years, and then franchise. And Clay’s done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy’s just an amazing, he’s key. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Cockrell, Head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with, like Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours.

On the day-to-day, he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers and graphic designers and web developers, and they run 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So in the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13 step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multimillionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, making it, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable scalable business.

One of his businesses has 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So amazing guy. Elon Musk kind of smart guy. He comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that Clay, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. And that’s what I like the most about. He’s a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. And Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. When I was really most impressed with him is when I was shadowing him one time.

We went into a business deal and I got to shadow and listen to it. And when we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal. And they were super excited about working with him. And he told me, he’s like, “I’m not going to touch it. I’m going to turn it down.” Because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. And the guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. And anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate, anytime I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or navigating competition and an economy that’s like… I remember we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to get back open, how to just survive through all the covid shutdowns, lockdowns because our clubs were all closed for three months, and you have $350,000 of bills you’ve got to pay, and we have no accounts receivable.

He helped us navigate that. And of course, we were conservative enough that we could afford to take that on for a period of time. But anyways, great, man. I’m very impressed with him. So Clay, thank you for everything you’re doing, and I encourage you, if you haven’t worked with Clay, work with Clay, he’s going to help magnify you. And there’s nobody I have ever met that has the ability to work as hard as he does. He probably sleeps four, maybe six hours a day, and literally the rest of the time he’s working and he can outwork everybody in the room every single day and he loves it.

So anyways, this is Charles Kola with Kola Fitness. Thank you Clay. And anybody out there that’s wanting to work with Clay, it’s a great, great opportunity to ever work with him. So you guys have a blessed one. This is Charles Kola. We’ll see you guys. Bye-bye.

Hi, I’m Aaron [inaudible 00:49:30] with Shaw Holmes. I first heard about Clay through a mortgage lender here in town who had told me what a great job he had been doing for them. And I actually noticed he was driving a Lamborghini all of a sudden, so I was willing to listen. In my career, I’ve sold a little over $800 million in real estate, so honestly, I thought I knew everything about marketing and homes and then I met Clay and my perception of what I knew and what I could do definitely changed. After doing 800 million in sales over a 15-year career, I really thought I knew what I was doing. I’ve been managing a large team of salespeople for the last 10 years here with Shaw Holmes and we’ve been a company that’s been in business for 35 years. We’ve become one of the largest builders in the Tulsa area, and that was without Clay.

So when I came to know Clay, I really thought, man, there’s not much more I need to know, but I’m willing to listen. The interesting thing is our internet leads from our website has actually in a four-month period of time gone from somewhere around 10 to 15 leads in a month to 180 internet leads in a month. Just from the few things that he’s shown us how to implement that I honestly probably never would’ve come up with on my own. So I got a lot of good things to say about the system that Clay put in place with us and it’s just been an incredible experience. I am very glad that we met and had the opportunity to work with Clay. So the interaction with the team and with Clay on a weekly basis is honestly very enlightening. One of the things that I love about Clay’s perspective on things is that he doesn’t come from my industry.

He’s not somebody who’s in the home building industry. I’ve listened to all the experts in my field. Our company has paid for me to go to seminars, international builders shows, all kinds of places where I’ve had the opportunity to learn from the experts in my industry. But the thing that I’ve found working with Clay is that he comes from such a broad spectrum of working with so many different types of businesses that he has a perspective that’s difficult for me to gain because I get so entrenched in what I do, I’m not paying attention to what other leading industry experts are doing, and Clay really brings that perspective for me. It is very valuable time every week when I get that hour with him. From my perspective, the reason that any business owner who’s thinking about hooking up with Thrive needs to definitely consider it is because the results that we’ve gotten in a very short period of time are honestly monumental.

It has really exceeded my wildest expectation of what he might be able to do. I came in skeptical because I’m very pragmatic and as I’ve gone through the process over just a few months, I’ve realized it’s probably one of the best moves we’ve ever made. I think a lot of people probably feel like they don’t need a business or marketing consultant because they maybe are a little bit prideful and like to think they know everything. I know that’s how I felt coming in. We’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town, and so we felt like we knew what we were doing and I think for a lot of people, they let their ego get in the way of listening to somebody that might have a better or different perspective than theirs. I would just really encourage you, if you’re thinking about working with Clay, the thing is it’s month to month.

Go give it a try and see what happens. I think in the 35-year history of Shaw Holmes, this is probably the best thing that’s happened to us, and I know if you give him a shot, I think you’ll feel the same way. I know for me, the thing I would’ve missed out on if I didn’t work with Clay is I would’ve missed out on literally an 1,800% increase in our internet leads going from 10 a month to 180 a month. That would’ve been a huge financial decision to just decide not to give it a shot. I would absolutely recommend Clay Clark to anybody who’s thinking about working with somebody in marketing. I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about and I would go straight to Clay and his team. I guarantee you’re not going to regret it because we sure haven’t.

My name is Danielle Sprik and I am the founder of D Sprik Realty Group here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After being a stay at home mom for 12 years and my three kids started school and they were in school full-time, I was at a crossroads and trying to decide what do I want to do? My degree and my background is in education, but after being a mom and staying home and all of that, I just didn’t have a passion for it like I once did. My husband suggested real estate. He’s a home builder, so real estate and home building go hand in hand, and we just rolled with it. I love people. I love working with people. I love the building relationships, but one thing that was really difficult for me was the business side of things, the processes and the advertising and marketing.

I knew that I did not have what I needed to make that what it should be, so I reached out to Clay at that time and he and his team have been extremely instrumental in helping us build our brand, help market our business, our agents, the homes that we represent. Everything that we do is a direct line from Clay and his team and all that they’ve done for us.

We launched our brokerage, our real estate brokerage eight months ago, and in that time we’ve gone from myself and one other agent to just this week, we signed on our 16th agent. We have been blessed with the fact that we right now have just over 10 million impending transactions. Three years ago, I never would have even imagined that I would be in this role that I’m in today building a business, having 16 agents, but I have to give credit where credits due and Clay and his team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us has been huge. It’s been instrumental in what we’re doing. Don’t ever limit your vision. When you dream big, big things happen.

I started a business because I couldn’t work for anyone else. I do things my way. I do what I think is in the best interest of the patient. I don’t answer to any insurance companies. I don’t answer to large corporate organizations. I answer to my patient and that’s it. My thought when I opened my clinic was I can do this all myself. I don’t need additional outside help in many ways. I went to medical school, I can figure this out, but it was a very, very steep learning curve. Within the first six months of opening my clinic, I had a $63,000 embezzlement. I lost multiple employees. Clay helped us weather the storm of some of the things that a lot of people experience, especially in the medical world.

He was instrumental in helping with the specific written business plan. He’s been instrumental in hiring good quality employees using the processes that he outlines for getting in good talent, which is extremely difficult. He helped me in securing the business loans. He helped me with web development and search engine optimization. We’ve been able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in because they found us on the web. With everything that I encountered, everything that I experienced, I quickly learned it is worth every penny to have someone in your team that can walk you through and even avoid some of the pitfalls that are almost invariable in starting your own business. I’m Dr. Chad Edwards and I own Revolution Health and Wellness Clinic.

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