Business Podcast | Find a REAL Product or Service to Sell to Your REAL l Ideal & Likely Buyers | Why Many Businesses Ideas Are Simply Not Viable (A Look Into the Life of an ASPIRING FUNERAL COMEDIAN) + 8 Client Success Stories

Audio Transcription

Folks, on today’s show we’re going to talk about why you must find a real product to sell to your real, ideal, and likely buyers, and why many business ideas are simply not viable. Business ideas, or good business ideas. Not every idea is a good business idea. And so before we get into today’s training, I want to walk you through the example of what would happen if you decided to become an aspiring funeral comedian and emcee. I’m starving. I ate some Triscuit crackers in the car. You should have had some. Well maybe if you told me they were delicious Triscuit crackers I could have enjoyed them with you. I’m sorry. Well sorry doesn’t put the Triscuit crackers in my stomach now does it? Hello, folks. Welcome to the funeral of Carl. The casket will be open today, but Carl, he’s closed for business, right? Did you hear that guy? What is this? Who is that? Folks, as you’re saying your last goodbyes, I know that some of you didn’t know Carl. You’re just here with your significant other. So if that’s you, we prefer for you not to sign in the registration book and to only have one gourmet cheese cube from the buffet. Because we’re going to save the vast majority of the delicious snacks and wraps and cheese assortments for the people who actually knew Carter. Because as we know, many of you are just here for the food right? Right? I mean that’s…wow that’s tough ground. Is this really happening? Okay so folks I was calling my wife to say hello just a few minutes ago before the funeral began and I told her I said it was hard to figure out whether this gig was a funeral or a horse stable because white along faces right? Is this actually happening? Is this real? white alone faces right Yeah Folks I will be here all all day for the next hour Funeral comedian and I was hired by the family to Entertain well, I I did some trade-out. No, so like why actually I called I called the the nearly departed the deceased and He owed me some money. And so I’m a muffler repair guy. I repair mufflers. And he owed me some money, and so I got a hold of his surviving widow, and I said, hey, you don’t need to worry about paying me back but just give me my golden opportunity to try out my funeral comedian and MC skills. So in a way, you guys are paying off Carl’s debt. So, I’m excited to be here with you guys today. It’s good overall energy right now. I can sense us on the verge of a rebound. So, alright folks, check this out. So, with Carl’s passing, we need to look at the bright side. The economy, you know, may be struggling, but apparently this funeral home is booming! Oh, sorry, just… You’ve got to admit that was pretty good, right? I mean, that was… Okay. Folks, on your way out, please don’t hesitate to grab one of my business cards. I’ve conveniently placed it in the casket with Carl. I get very little free paid business, and I would appreciate the opportunity to serve you. I mean, not you specifically, but for Father Time over there, somebody get my car. This guy might be needing my services this week, right? Love you guys. It’s like I put it out, but you guys give it back to me. You guys are delivering to me. It’s a participation sport, comedy, yeah. Well, I don’t think I’m going to be doing that. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Shut up! Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show. But this show does. In a world filled with endless opportunities, why would two men who have built 13 multi-million dollar businesses altruistically invest five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use. Because they believe in you and they have a lot of time on their hands. They started from the bottom, now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show starring the former US Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body. Dr. Robert Zilner. Two men, eight kids, co-created by two different women. Thirteen multi-million dollar businesses. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and I’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re at the top Teaching you the systems to get what we got Colton Dixon’s on the hoops, I break down the books See, bringing some wisdom and the good looks As the father of fire, that’s why I’m alive So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi It’s the CNC up on your radio And now, 3, 2, 1, here we go! We started from the bottom, now we in it Started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get this We are going to be breaking down 10 knowledge bombs that I know are going to bless you. What I want to do, I want to ask all the listeners for a quick ask, a quick favor before we get started here. I think it’s only fair. Everybody out there, I want you to get a piece of paper or a notepad, maybe an Etch-A-Sketch. Get something that will allow you to take notes, because what you are teaching now, see, how old are you right now? I’m 54, or I was going to say, if you’re a millennial, you could use a notes section on your smartphone. Talk to text. Yes. Right, okay. So just clarify, you’re 54 right now. Correct. For the people out there that maybe won’t have an appreciation for what we’re going to teach you in just a second, I want to tee it up here. Throughout your career, Dr. Z, you first built a what kind of business? Optometric clinic. Which is your first location? Where are your two locations now? Approximately 31st and Harvard and 71st and Memorial. How would you describe the size of these compared to the average optometrist? They’re above average. Okay. That’s humble. Yeah, I mean, you know. What was the second business that you started? The second business was a diagnostic sleep center. Okay, and what is that called? Dr. Z’s Sleep Center. Get it? I see what you did there. Get it? Now, nine out of ten startups fail, according to Forbes. That’s true. And Z, did any of those fail, the first two? Did they fail? No, they became, in fact, the largest in the region. Okay, so what was your third business that you started? I started an auto auction. What’s that called? Z66 Auto Auction. Okay, and does it do well? Is it okay? Yeah, it’s the largest in the state currently. Okay, and what was your next business you started? A DME company, which stands for Durable Medical Equipment Company, and we do several things, but the main thing we do are the CPAP machines for people that have sleep apnea that we diagnose in the Dr. Z Sleep Center. Did you not invest early on in Regent Bank, you and Sean Copeland? It was funny because Sean, actually a good friend of mine, approached me to use their bank, and I said, well, I’m tired of switching banks, let’s go buy a bank. He said, great idea, let’s go buy one. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So Sean, did you know Sean previous to him approaching you? I was doing a lecture, or I was speaking at one of those organizations, you know, one of those lunch groupings, I think could have been, I’m not sure if it was a fellowship of Christian businessmen or, you know, business dudes that are, you know, really serious dudes. I mean, I forget the name of it, okay? I was speaking when maybe it was one of those… Luncheon? Men of Integrity. Men of Integrity Luncheon. Men of Integrity, the Luncheon Series. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Like, like red cars. So you guys… But anyway, I was speaking at that, and he came up to me afterwards and handed me his card and introduced himself. And from that point on, we became friends and built a relationship. And then he was trying to woo me to start using the bank he was working currently at. And I said, forget that. Let’s go buy one. So we did. My little back story with Sean is if you were out there and you don’t know who Sean Copeland is, one, Google the search, search the guy. It’s Sean, S-E-A-N, Copeland, K-O-U-P-L-E-N. He is a guy who’s kind of like the Joel Osteen of banking. No doubt about it. He’s an author, he’s a lecturer, he’s a great guy. He’s an all-around… One of the nicest guys ever. He also gives you a bro hug. When he meets you, he gives you a bro hug. An appropriate bro hug. Does he not? Yes, it’s certified. One of the only bankers I know that gives a basketball-style handshake-hug combo. Well, he was a basketball player back in the day. Truly, and it’s an amazing combination. So, Sean Copeland, I knew him when he was at Citizen Security Bank. He was one of the youngest people at that bank. Rose to the top. He became the president of the Bixby Chamber of Commerce. I knew him when he moved to Grand Bank and then now Region Bank. And so you said, hey buddy, I know you’re going to move to different banks and try to drum up deposits. You’re always going to be a top performer, but why don’t we just buy a bank? You know, the thing about a bank is this, is that I’ve said on different shows that I don’t get involved in a business unless I can control it. But a bank is so controlled by the federal government, by the organization that they’re under, that I felt comfortable owning a minority piece of a bank because we decided when we went to buy it, Sean and I set up a format that nobody would have a controlling interest. Everybody would have, you know, say ten guys each own ten percent kind of thing. And as part of the Illuminati, don’t you control the government? Okay, alright, so now here is… Can I tell a funny Sean Copeland story? Yes, please, please, please, T. it up here. Well, his grandfather was a cattle farmer out by where I have my horse ranch. They’re actually neighbors of mine out there. Oh, really? Yeah. And so, anyway, he was telling me a story that some land came up for sale next to their ranch and the grandfather said, we’ve got to go buy that. You know, we don’t want your mobile home parks moving in. It’d be the worst. I mean, we’ve got to protect our flanks. We’ve got to protect our flanks. They’re coming to get us. We’ve got to protect our flanks, family. And they looked at him at the dinner table and said, Grandpa, you know that’s three miles now from where we live? We’ve protected it pretty well. That’s seven layers, D. That’s across a moat. Yeah, it’s kind of far away. So, the reason why I say all that is because, yes, you’re my friend. Yes, in many respects, I consider you to be kind of like my business dad. You’ve been there for me. You’ve been more than a brother, more than a friend. It’s awesome what you’ve done for my wife and I and our family. First hiring my wife, and it’s just little things, but my wife worked for your optometry clinic and I didn’t know you super well, but the standard of excellence that you guys created there was inspiring to me. So I would go in the lobby and I would spy on the business and look at the checklists. And I didn’t have a, we didn’t have smartphones yet where I could take pictures, but I would actually draw. Mentally. I’m serious. I would draw pictures of the checklist. I would go in there. I would, I could, why does he set up retail this way, that way? I just, I studied your company and it created a source of inspiration for me to see a guy killing the game in optometry. Then at a time in our life where we didn’t have a lot of money, we’re starting djconnection.com. I worked at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV, a time where you probably should not have said yes. You agreed to meet with me for lunch and taught me a lot of things about the game of business. One of the first guys who was adamant about advertising. And I can say, Chuck, this is the easiest part of business, is marketing and branding so easy. Fun stuff. Sales so easy. No, just be good. Isn’t marketing branding? It’s so easy. Fun sales is easy, but then you get into Managing people and you have to get to a place where you have core principles that you that you adhere to Pretty much a hundred percent of the time you have core principles that you adhere to and dr. Z said well, you know clay I have these ten rules for success. I want to teach you ten business pig rules Z. When did you come up with these rules? This has been, I formulated them over the years of business. But when did you get down to 10? I’m going to go back to one thing you said. First of all, thank you for all the kind words. No, I mean it, though. And I do see you as a business younger little brother or son. I like both of those. And when your father passed from ALS a few years ago, it was a really bonding moment for the two of us in time we put together, getting you through the grieving motion of that. But I will give hats off to your wife, Vanessa. That used to work for me. And that’s how we met was through her. The fact that she could see the inner man that you were, because the dude that you were when you came to pick her up was a dude that we all, we all sat around the break room and thought, what on earth is she with him? The combination of both dumb and aggressive made it tough. I mean, really, I mean, the fact that she could see through your, your crusty outer shell into a soft little inner jelly goodness that you are. Jason talked about this morning in one of our meetings, but if you’re Kanye West and you’re known as having the Kanye scowl, that’s cool because you’re Kanye West. If you’re Eminem and you’re known as being intense, but in your Eminem, that’s cool. But if you’ve got nothing, and you’re just dumb and aggressive, that’s not a move. You pull up in your car and the walls will rattle. You had that thing cranked up so loud. He’s like a clam, right? There was a pearl in his snout. You’re kind of all skunky-eyed and looking to pick a fight. I’ve got to ask you something. When did you finally distill your observations from years of experience running companies into these ten rules? Well, what happened was I got, like you, except I didn’t get paid Okay, I got asked to speak at an event And so I thought you know you you speak and then you keep your notes and the next time you work on it You can make it your notes people love you know hey, I’m gonna teach on my ten points today Oh, they just they light up like oh ten points. I don’t miss one of these you know They’re writing them down, and they’re focusing on it, and it kind of helps direct your you know your conversation Then you get a theme and I got a I themed it up. I got one. That’s a little unusual. It’s not unusual to have a pig as your theme. Let me get a wood block. It’s not unusual. Okay, back to you. So I kind of, through speech writing, I formulated these ten… This was a speech that I gave. Okay. And so it kind of forced me to sit down and go, what are my… Okay, here’s what it looks like. How can I put that into this format. All of this goes under the title of what would Z do in my mind. So I’m going to read the principle and then the business pig principle. I’m calling these, these are Dr. Z’s 10 business pig principles for success. Right, exactly. And I would tell everybody out there that owns a business, if I walked up to one of your employees and said, hey, how would you handle this situation? One of the things that should go through their mind is how would my owner slash boss handle this situation? And if you haven’t taught them or given them the ability or the action steps in order to do that, I would encourage you to do that. Because it got inspired by those little bracelets years ago that came out. Those little rubber band bracelets. WWJD. Yeah, what would Jesus do? That’s a really good way to kind of think through it. You’re at a fork in the road and which way would he go? What would he do? What would he do? And so that’s just a real kind of principle that I’ve always enjoyed having because a lot of times I’ll have an employee come to me with a problem and I look at them and I’d say, well what would I do? And they go, oh well you do this. Just to demonstrate the mastery of how locked in you and I are now, we’re going to teach a principle and then I’m going to play a song on the cowbell and you can guess what song it is. Perfect. See if you can see how locked in we are. This is one of my favorite songs. Yeah, this is my favorite games I made. Here we go. So principle number one. Name the tune. Pigs get fat, hogs get butchered. What does that mean? What does that mean? I was taught by that from a judge that I met from Racing Pigeons, which is a whole other show. We’ll get into that. You’re making this up. No, no, no, no, no. It’s a thing. Google it. It’s a thing. Racing Pigeons. I did that for years. His name was Dick Ott. And anyway, he talked about saying, and as soon as he said it, it was just like a light bulb went off in me. It’s just like my blood started to boil. I just thought it was one of the coolest things ever because what it deals with is greed. It deals with greed. And there’s a lot of ways business owners can be greedy. One of the ways business owners can be greedy is pricing their product or their services. So high. So high. Hey, how much does your smoker cost? $1.2 billion dollars. What do you think about the philosophy that has been taught by many consultants all around the world? If people are willing to pay for it and not complain about the price, you should just keep raising it. Well, there is something about that. Okay. But then the point is that the pig raises it until he gets one or two complaints and then goes, okay, I know I’m probably there. The hog continues to raise it until he stops selling it. You see the difference? So the pig goes, you know what, hey, I raised the five bucks, no one complained. Hey, I’m going to raise it another five bucks. No one complained. Right. And then when he starts to get a little bit of pushback and some complaints, he probably knows the issues. They were kind of wanting to complain before, but they just didn’t know how to verbalize it. And now he’s at the now he’s at the, you know, but my philosophy was this is why raise the price when you can expand the building, when you can hire more doctors, when you can do more, when you can just expand that. I mean, you’re there’s always a limiting membrane. Don’t let the price or the greed be your limiting membrane. And the other thing too is with employees. I know so many people that just beat up their employees on price. They will not pay them well. They won’t pay them well, yeah. Yeah. Listen, if you don’t take good care of your employees, especially your good ones, somebody else will. And that’s another component. It’s also a dating tip. Yeah. Okay. But that’s another component of greed the third area That I see so many times is it people that own a business just want to beat their vendors up They want they want to get in there and they’ve that sales reps comes in the door And they’re pretty soon that you know they come in every two weeks and now they’re every month and now they’re every six weeks now You don’t even see him anymore because they’re tired of getting beat up on price come in and go well You need to knock that thing down another two points. You know two percent thinking about making a switch. I’m thinking about sending this back up for negotiations. The thing about it, it’s got to be a win-win. Let me give some specifics to this that I’ve asked Dr. Z about over the years that I think Chuck will be helpful to add to the show notes. One, as you just said, we need to make a win-win in all scenarios. It needs to be a win for the customer, a win for the employee. We call it the three Ps. You want to have a business that’s profitable. You want to have a product that you’re proud of. And you want to have people that you like working with. The three Ps. Absolutely. Also, you want to make a profit of about, what, Z? 20%? 25%? Is sort of that target. Some industries are higher, some are lower, like home building. Somewhere between 20 and 30 is a pretty healthy margin. If you’re shooting for more than 30, you’re kind of getting the hug. You see guys who are like, I made a 70% margin on this new homie model. It’s my only one I’ve ever gotten though, but I swear. I crushed it. Right. And it just, OK, that’s not going to work. The Johnson’s are god damn good suckas. Now Z, I’m going to cue up our first song on our show, Name That Tune. OK. I want you to think about the song. OK. Think about the song. I’m going to play it. And as I play it on the cowbell, I want you to ask yourself to see, what song is this on this edition of Name That Tune. I’m a former DJ. I know hundreds of thousands of songs. And I’m not. It could be any song. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to give you a genre. That way we narrow it down. No, no, no. Don’t even. Don’t keep in this moment. No, I just want to get. It’s a song that was sang by a male artist. Okay, got it. I think I already know this. I already gave it away. Here we go. Oh, that’s easy. Michael Jackson, Beat It. Yes! Ba da da da da, ba da da da da, ba da da da da, ba da da da da. That was impressive. Oh, well, thank you. I don’t know how you do that every time. It’s crazy. It’s crazy good. To demonstrate how out of sync Chup and I are now, Chup, I’m going to tee up a song here. This song was sang by a male artist. Okay. And I’m going to play it, and I want you to see if you can guess what I’m ready. I Know it on top of old smokies. No purple rain We haven’t spent enough time to get more in osmosis all right more in a flow, okay? Principal number two from dr. Z’s business pig principles for success Principal number two be the pig at breakfast not the chicken. What does that mean? What does it mean? Well, let’s look at the rolls at breakfast. I love rolls. Oh, yeah. Is that a place where you throw them at each other on the flywheel? I went there this weekend. You did? Yeah, yeah. Lambert. Lambert. Lambert. Oh, shout out to Lambert. The Throne Rolls. Hey, you know what? Are you serious? You went there? I went there on Friday night. Let me celebrate this moment. You went to Lambert. I went to Lambert’s! Watch out the throat! Of all the restaurants in the world he could have possibly gone to! How did that happen? Z and I are in sync here. We can’t make this up. Wow. Okay. So, being the pig means you gave your life for bacon, ham, sausage. Sausage. That means fully committed. In other words, you were all in. All in. The chicken lays an egg, and you know, it’s kind of like, maybe I’ll lay an egg tomorrow if I see you like it This is something I hear all the time I see people say all the time I’m gonna try out this idea come on and see if it works cuz if this idea works Then I’ll go ahead and keep pursuing it I’m just gonna try this but my fallback position is this other job I put a little bit of money into this coffee shop, but if it requires work and I don’t get traction, I am going to stop. See, why is that such jackassery to not be the pig at breakfast? I’m going to tell you an example. I was mentoring a young man who wanted to open up a swanky clothing store, you know, that kind of swank that they have, those pants with swagalicious. The kind of stuff that Caleb would buy. Yeah, exactly. You know, the kind of cool t-shirt, you know, very stylish, you know, crazy socks and all that stuff. And a few months later, you know, we have another meeting and he comes by to kind of commiserate. And I’m like, what’s that? Because I think I have to shut it down. I’m like, what’s going on? He goes, well, try to find good help. And I’ve got this dude on Saturdays just keeps stealing from me, I think. You know, man, just giving free stuff away to his friends, and robbing the kitty, and all that kind of stuff. I’m like, well, why don’t you just get in there and work on Saturdays? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. Bro, that’s leg day. Hey, I have audio of what this person said to you. I know it’s kind of unethical for me to have mic’d a private conversation between you and the man that you were mentoring to start this clothing company? Was it a clothing company? Yeah. Haberdashery. I want to make sure it was a clothing company because I mic all conversations. It’s hard to sort through my audio files, but this is what he said to you. You said to him, you said, buddy, you got to be willing to do whatever it takes. And this is what he said to you. Surely you can’t be serious. I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley. I don’t quite understand the exchange, but that’s what happened. Well, that’s the thing about it is, is that when you, in Napoleon Dynamite’s book, he talks about burning the boats. What that means is that from one island, they would go and attack the next island. The idea was that there was no retreat, there was no plan B, we’re either going to take this island or die. I mean, that’s a huge… Think about that. The mindset of that. Think about this. After reading that book, I read that book 2000-ish, then I had a lunch with you, teed up by Kylie, our manager, who’s still there. By the way, super excited for the holiday party. Christmas party’s coming up very soon. Clay, I just want to point one thing out. When you pulled up for lunch and you lit your car on fire, it’s not the same thing, okay? You don’t have to burn your car. Bro, I took that to be literal. Burn the building. That’s not the same thing. I was also one of the early jihadi recruits, and so I just went ahead and pulled out the manual for car bombs. Okay, now the point is, the point is, seriously, I had just finished reading that book, and I met with you. And I remember this. You said, Clay, can I be frank with you? And I go, OK. I thought you were Robert, but OK. But you said this. You said, you have got to advertise. You eventually have to buy an ad. And I remember kind of like having quite, well, yeah, but I can’t afford it. And you’re like, listen, I’m not a paid consultant. Just buy an ad I had You were just very direct on that and I remember going This guy’s a jerk You got up and went to the salad bar I remember going I wrote that down like this guy Cuz this and I were in a spot where I’m working at Applebee’s Target and DirecTV Three jobs Vanessa had a job at Office Depot and Oral Roberts University And I remember going I don’t know how we’re gonna do this and so I went and talked to Vanessa. I’m like, burn the boats, Dr. Z. It’s like an hour-long windup. And I’m like, we’re going to have to turn off the air conditioning or the heat. We’ve got to do something. I don’t know. It was a powerful moment in your life. No, seriously. And we actually sold. We had a white car. I cannot remember. It was like a, I want to say it was an American model, like a Buick or something my parents had sold for me That my parents sold to me for like nothing. It was very low Cost right I sold that and we just had the Mazda MPV and she started walking to work and she would drop me off at My jobs and we decided to buy a yellow page ad from Sally who is Lewis Hey Lewis, that’s right Who is the mother of one of your clients Kevin Lewis Lewis riffing and it was like two grand a month, is it? See, has there ever been a better time in American history? I mean, right now, you can turn on your YouTube ads or your Facebook ads month to month, man, week to week. See, do you remember the times when you had to commit to an agreement for like a year to buy a Yellow Page ad? I know, I tell you what, business owners starting today have got that part of it much easier. Oh, it’s so easy. I mean, it’s so much easier than we had it back in the day, but I remember, I tell you what, you put that picture in the ad and you made sure you had the big ones up front. I mean, come on now. I was like, I’m stumped right now. Full page of the hot. It’s like fishing for fish in a barrel. Jeff Ramsey was my first inbound call ever. Remember? Jeff Ramsey. Oh yeah. It’s crazy, you were saying the other day on the show, Clay, you had to commit to whatever marketing strategy you were going for for a year. There was no A-B testing. There was no trying things out. It’s like- And let me tell you how I did it. Here we go. Dr. Z said if your ad doesn’t grab somebody by the throat- Z, can you explain what kind of ad you want? If you’re going to launch an ad, what your ad has to do in terms of getting the attention of your ideal and likely buyers? Well, you’ve got to have a call to action. The ad has to inspire you. How many times right now you’re listening right now, you’ve heard an ad on the radio, you’ve seen an ad in a magazine or newspaper, you’ve watched an ad on TV, and you go, huh, yeah, I don’t know. And then the ad comes along that makes you laugh, makes you remember it, makes you go, I’ve got to have that thing. If I don’t have that thing, I may not make it. I might not. I might not. I do. My quality of life would be horrible without that. I need a ham from the Hamlet. A honey cut ham. I mean, honey cut ham from the Hamlet. You have to have a call to action and in order to do that, you have to have some kind of component of a deal that just is so awesome, so incredible. So back in the day, my whole goal was to get them to pick up the phone and call me. I thought I want to have something so crazy, so outlandish, so over the top, call to action, they have no choice but to pick up the phone and call. That was the move back in the day. All I did was I looked at my competition and they had an ad that said something like, started in 1984, founded in 1984. So I’m going, well, conceived in 1980. Yeah, that was. So I’m like, OK, and then it said we have over 100,000 songs. And I thought to myself, talking to Z, I mean, I could conceivably get up to a million songs. So I wrote something like we can get up to 110,000 songs or something just more than that. I just want them. And I said, we’ll be any competitor’s price. And my ad was smoking hot, dude. It worked. It got attention. I put my head. That’s what advertising does. If done correctly, it makes a phone drink. I, literally, all the ads were kind of conservative. I took my head and put it on a body of a person in a suit using Photoshop. So it was like a caricature head, like a bobble head on a normal size man body, but like a five times larger head. And it worked, dude. Clay, I don’t want to be mean, and I don’t want to be disrespectful. You know I’ve got a lot of man love for you. You know that, right? Yep. But your head is really, really big. No, I’ve got to be honest with you. I did not enlarge the photo at all. Thank you. Stay in your picture. But I mean, when I went out there and launched the ad, I had to be the pig at breakfast. I had to commit to it. And that’s one of the things that I think, why we have such a high fail rate on businesses. According to Forbes, which is kind of our business Bible, we like to quote Forbes a lot because they’ve done a lot of the research and it’s the easy button. We don’t have to go do it, to be honest with you, they’ve already done it. And 90% of businesses fail up to 80%, 90% of startups and then 80% of businesses fail and that rate is way too high. That’s one of the things that started us down this pathway of building a business school online, doing in-person workshops, doing the radio show, which is now a podcast, having one-on-one, now even one-on-one coaching, business coaching. A quick clarification. A lot of people might have misunderstood what you just said. When you said Forbes, you weren’t saying F-orbs. Nope. No, I was saying Forbes. Spherical bodies or globes, you have no problem with those. When I meet an entrepreneur that has that fire in their eye and says, I’m going to do this no matter what. Studies show that people that say, I have a plan B, I might fall back, I’m not going to burn my boats, I have an escape door, I have a parachute. You think, well, that’s wisdom. That just sounds wise. That sounds good. A prudent man has his… Wouldn’t be prudent. No. Be the pig. Fully commit. Get your mindset wrapped around because 67% of you out there, according to Forbes again, want to start a business. We want to help you start it and grow it. Be committed to saying, you know what, I’m going to do whatever it takes to make it happen. We’ve talked about this in the past on the show, but the thought of a founder’s mentality, that means there’s urgency within your actions. And if you’ve only dipping a toe in the jacuzzi, if you’re only trying out the waters. Oh, in the jacuzzi? Yeah, if you’re only testing out the waters. You put out the toe, yeah, I tell you what. You probably knocked yourself right now. I got a nice double dipper. I’m taking my shirt off right now. Z, whoa! Z, you’re ripped, bro! Z, again remember, today’s show, the entire focus of today’s show is what would Z do? Yeah, I get the jacuzzi. What would Z do? The business picks 10 business principles for success, alright? So Z, I’m going to cue up my next song from name that tune here. I’m gonna play the song. This song is a male artist from the 80s. A male artist, think about it for a second, think about it. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I transmit the signal to you. Is it an individual or is it a boy band? I couldn’t give that much information. I got it. It’s magical. So I’m gonna go ahead and play the beat. And you can tell me what it is. Here we go. Name that tune with Dr. Z. Demonstrate how in sync we are mentally. Here we go. Oh, that’s easy. Bobby Brown, Don’t Be Cruel. I don’t be cruel. I would never be that cruel to you. It’s so simple. No, no, no. You’ve got to give me a harder one. I’m sorry. I’m trying. I’m trying over here. Okay, so principle number three, business pig principle number three that has allowed Dr. Z to build multiple multi-million dollar businesses. It’s know when to cook the pig. What does that mean? What does it mean? Z, audio, quick audio. Let’s do this quick audio. Okay. You’re saying it weird. Saying what weird? All of it. Where do you get off? I just don’t get why you’re saying it that way. Why I’m saying what way? Okay, now we’ve clarified what you’re saying, Z. What you’re saying. Talk to me, talk to us about what you mean when we say, no, when to cook the pig. Well, I always loved those scenes in Hawaii. Of course, he doesn’t love Hawaii. I mean, you know, come on. Mickey and Mickey Mouse, the things to be, on the planet Earth, the things to use. So they have the luau’s and in the luau one of the standards in the luau is a pig. You know with an apple in its mouth. I mean the whole like the whole pig being cooked right. And it’s always a celebration. They’re always a big family celebration. It’s a wedding. It’s a there we go. There we go. There we go. Keep going Steve that’s both. So the idea that you’re going to cook a pig means you’re partying, means you’re having fun, means you’re celebrating, means you are having a good time. Oh nice. Tis the season. And so for me it’s very important. Okay, sorry. So, for example, this December 8th, we are going to have a, probably more than 500 people at our Christmas party. It’s going to be epic. Employee Christmas party. It’s going to be epic. They’re at the famous Mayo Hotel. The iconic. Iconic. And the crystal. Historic. Yes, and the crystal ballroom. Oh wow. Where they actually have original, it’s like original old school marble crown molding, the detail there. I mean, you talk, they don’t make hotels like that anymore. They don’t. The history. So I’m going to tell you, if you’re a business owner out there and your team has some wins, go celebrate it. Hey, take them to a pizza joint, go bowling, go to a billiards. You took my wife and I to Magoo’s! Yes, which is a billiards. You took all your employees to Magoo’s. Shovel board and billiards. We had a great time. Great time. A fabulous time. Dude, and I’m just telling you, at the time though, when you did it, Vanessa and I couldn’t afford to go on dates. It was a huge highlight for us, man. It’s a win-win. One, selfishly as the employer, I get my team bonding together, even tighter, better friends, fired up. And they also know that if they work hard and they hit the numbers and we have a successful month, guess what? Chicken butt. Exactly. No, it was huge. They had a great night out. It was exciting. It was, very fun. Also, I remember the Christmas party. It was the first time we had a formal event since we got married. It’s so much fun. I’m telling you out there, business owners, if you’re not celebrating the victories with your staff, you’re missing an opportunity to not only bond with them, but to also show them that they’re in the boat with you. I have a question on behalf of the listener who couldn’t be here today. And, Shep, I’ll kind of tee it up here. So Dr. Z, why can’t you have a cheap-ass Christmas party? Why can’t you have just the cheapest-ass thing, the cheapest, the most unbelievably tacky, because for years I’ve been buying my employees, I’ve been regifting, you know what I mean? I regift and it’s been kind of a secret thing, no one really knows, but I’ve been regifting and it’s been working well. Why do I have to spend all the time and the money to put together a holiday party? Here again, these are one of the things that help you build a culture of the environment of your workplace. Come on now. When your staff knows that there is something, there is something at the end of the rainbow. I mean, it did suck if you ever get to the end of the rainbow and there’s no pot of gold and you’re like, oh, I was fine, I was old. Oh, I’m fine. He’s after me like a charm. He’s after me like a charm. So the idea is that you’re team building, at the same time you’re celebrating the victory. And so when I went to listen to one of my favorite business gurus of all time, Jack Welch, one of my favorite business books winning he’s so good love that winning because that’s what’s about people like well don’t you think we need a shit no win win win more about winning and we when he got up there on stage and basically said the same thing he said listen you got to go out there you make sure you hire people you want to celebrate things with because you want if you don’t want to go and hang out with them then you shouldn’t hire them to begin with amen there’s a caveat but he said go out and celebrate, celebrate victories. And I thought, it resonated with me, and I thought, can I come up there and give you a bro hug? But I mean this though, there’s many hotels we could have chosen, but it’s in a nice place. We could go tacky with the buffet. We could. But we don’t. We don’t. The whole thing, it’s a really, it’s a, Chuck you’ve been there before, can you describe the energy? Because for anybody out there who’s listening right now, who is attending our December conference, December 7th and 8th, as a little sneak attack. We’re going to be doing a drawing to see who gets to have lunch with Michael Levine, the great one, the PR consultant for Nike, for Michael Jackson, for Prince, for Pizza Hut. And we’re going to be doing drawings to see who wants to attend the Christmas party. You’ll get to see it first hand and in person. It’s a game changing event. Shep, can you explain what the party was like last year? It’s fun. I saw Dr. Z do the double splits. It’s first class. It’s an amazing experience. I’m still in therapy after that. You should go to the vacu-dance contest. You really brought out the- It’s awesome, though. And the thing is, like Dr. Z was saying, it is an awesome bonding experience. I met tons of people that work at other businesses, Z, that you own. And it was- Crossover, yeah. Yeah, it’s awesome to meet these people that are all bought into the same value and same culture and celebrate together, like he was saying. Yeah, exactly. Celebrate! So that’s a picture of that, cooking the pig, because you know when you cook that pig, you know you’ve got a celebration. In fact, I’m ashamed to say that in all the celebrations I’ve done with all my employees over 20, almost 27 years now, I’ve never once cooked a pig. Hey, can we bury a pig in your backyard, Clay, sometime? Can we do that? Can we cook a pig in your backyard? I know how to do it. The chicken complex. Clark. I’m committing right now. This has to happen. Oh my gosh. I saw the wheels turn and just look at him light up. This has to happen. Yes. Thrive Nation, you can’t see this, but he’s freaking out right now. Chuck, put it on the notes. We have to do this. This is this has to happen. We have to cook the pig. Let’s cook a pig. I’m not sure we have the land. You know, we could do for our in-person conference. I bet we could bring one out the cook with a bunch that’s on their okay what about what the other thing i guess i have a lot to do with we have to activate this idea because we just have ideas you don’t act upon it it just a little bit i’m gonna put on my to-do list let’s do it we should cook the pig that’s a thing that’s a thing okay z next next just to show how locked in we are this this next song was written by an artist okay and it’s a song that people know. People know this song. I’m going to cue it up now. A lot of people are saying you’re making a mockery of this name. No, I’m not. This is a sincere name. I’ll play the song first and you guess. We’ll see if you get it right. And then Z, you get to go second. I like this. I like this. Here we go. I feel like I’m set up for success. Here we go. Here we go, Chuck. We already did, if I could turn back time, Clay, in the last show. By Cher? Yeah. No. Okay. Okay, Z. Here we go. That’s easy. Bruno Mars, Locked Out of Heaven. Locked out of heaven! Yes! Yes! He even slowed it down a little bit. He’s still got it. That’s amazing. See, that’s amazing right there. It’s a gift. What can I say? What can I say? I knew you were going to go a little hip-hop, Ami. I knew you were going that direction. A little bit of R&B, a little bit of hip-hop. I’m going to give it all over the board, doing old school down new school. I know your actions. Okay, so now the next principle number four, piggy bank. What is a piggy bank all about, my man? How many people do you think I’m going to fend with this uh… seventeen point two seven percent that’s fair i think it’s a fair number i’m gonna put it twenty but i think you’re not aggressive to the godfather kind of a theme here that which lets more palatable i think that is kind of funny i think it’s going to be appropriate right so tell us what’s what’s up what’s the principle here’s the concept everybody out there listen and say to yourself, how much money am I saving every month? How much money am I saving every month, John? And if you say to yourself, I’m not saving any money because I go paycheck to paycheck to paycheck to paycheck. Well, I got a ton of sneaks. He’s got a brown picket fence. Every now and then I get a little overtime and guess what? I get to go and, you know, blow it on something else. Because that’s what you do, right? Well, if I got to zero money down, I got to, it’s unbelievable, no payments for 24 months. I did some research. The average American family has $400 in savings. That’s only if you’re crediting the Federal Reserve for looking at the statistics of the max. That’s a crime. That’s a crime, Tony. You have to have the bank. You’ve got to live below your means. You’ve got to delay gratifications. You’ve got to use the family. It’s a piggy bank for a reason. You’ve got to shove some money in that thing. Take it off the top. Feed the pig before you feed anything else. Feed the pig before you feed yourself. I want to ask you a question real quick, here. the big three features the the thank you okay but here’s here’s the deal here’s the deal every out there is getting a paycheck raise your hand right now if you’re listening this got it you could be wherever you are but i have a really good job of your car on the wheel but i don’t know how to do it if you have a look at what you’re going to pay checkbook now now if you’re saving money raise the other hand and there’s not as many as a mega-bus real quick uh… andrew in our office andrew bloomer chop how much of a percentage of his paycheck is he now saving automated twenty five percent salute sexy that’s a great about it and i think i always go to people five to ten That’s aggressive. I always coach people 5 to 10, 5 minimum. He has been living at the office. Him and his newlywed wife. Seriously, he has been saving 25%. And see, that’s enough to pay the future rent right there. What I’m telling you folks is this. What’ll happen is you may go, I don’t need to save any money right now because I’m making good money. I mean, hey, I’m living the dream. I get it. You can’t take it with you, Z. I get it. But what’ll happen is in about a year and a half to two years, maybe three years Maybe four years down the road. Yeah, you’re going to say to yourself. You know what I’m done punching a time clock I want to start my own thing. There you go What are those guys I used to listen to you have the thrive time guide boom get it on school get on online business school I’m like, but maybe you have your idea like this widget will change the world this widget will change everything It’s brilliant. And then you’ll say now I need is money to start it. So what I’m saying for this, save for a rainy day, because rainy days come. I know Southern California, you’re listening to our podcast right now, you do get rain every now and then. Of course, all the fires out there, I’m sorry to hear all the destruction, but you do need some more rain. But rainy days come, folks, so you need to have a savings, number one. If you own a business, you should be able to not make any money for a month and survive. All right? These are huge things, okay? And by getting a war chest, I call it a war chest because starting a business, if you don’t think of it as going into battle, you really don’t have the right mindset to start it, okay? But having a war chest enables you now to put your own skin in the game, enables you to start your business, enables you to change your life, change your stars. So I know you may not have the business idea today, but you know what? You’ll have it down the road. I used to love when my DJ competitors would go out of business. They always put their gear for sale on Craigslist. For nothing. 30 cents on the dollar. Classified from the Tulsa world. Back in the day when the classified ads were a thing. Craig wasn’t even born yet. And I could buy that equipment for 10 cents on the dollar. Nothing like buying this kind of DJ gear from a former competitor. Beautiful. Beautiful. But saving allows you to buy opportunities. Now, Z, this next round of Name That Tune, just to show how locked in step we are, I’m going to just kind of cue it up here. This time I will give a little bit of lyrics. Okay? A little bit of lyrics. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Well, wouldn’t it be nice if I could touch your body? I know not everybody has got a body like you. What song is it? I have no idea. I know what it is. But I’ve got to think twice Before I give my heart away. I know all the games play because I play them too. Come on Z. That’s it’s right said Oh, but I need some time off from that emotion. Come on Z. Time to pick my heart off off the floor Well, it takes a strong man, baby, but I’m showing you the door I gotta have faith to faith to faith. I gotta have faith to faith to faith. Baby! Okay, sorry. Keep going. I’m actually starting a cowbell band. We’re huge in Michigan. On the Woodblock. Huge. Huge. Faith! Yeah, faith. You gotta have faith in the systems. You gotta believe that what you’re teaching actually works. These are principles that have been proven to work. And Z, these are these principles you haven’t just sat around on a lily pad thinking, well even though I have never started a company, here are principles that I want to teach someday. Nor do you make any money in the self-help industry. You just are a business owner who, by the way, has taken the time to distill the common denominators of the principles you’ve learned over the years. You know what’s sad is I have friends that make $100,000 and they’re broke. I have friends that make $500,000 and they’re broke. And when I say broke, in other words, if you said, hey, can you write me a check for $5,000 or $10,000, they’d be like, no, bro, why? Why? Now it’s a payday! Are you crazy? It’s the end of the month, dude! Oh wait, you can sit in my new jacuzzi just over there. Why would you ask about me giving you money? Anyway, the point is that it goes all across all socioeconomic dividers in the country, and that is that people aren’t saving. And we’re told not to. We’re, hey, credit cards, this whole culture of America, spend money, spend money, spend money. A lot of that was formed back in the days of, you know, when we have Social Security take care of you, we got your back end, you know? So a lot of that has trickled down to every generation. But I’m telling you what, folks, use that piggy bank and the fact that it’s a pig and kind of fits with the old kind of business pig, Tim, business pig concepts. You get it? I get it. Okay. Thank you. But if you’re not saving, I would really encourage you to do it. Yeah, you may have to get rid of a third car. You may have to get rid of some other luxury item that you have. Third girlfriend. You may have to get rid of that. Second girlfriend. Even that. Third party in your marriage. You know, you may have to get rid of cable or you have to choose between cable or dish. I mean, I know it’s a tough thing. You know I like to party. But wait, man, there’s things on dish that I can’t get on cable and vice versa, bro. Bro. So bro, come on, man, bro. So here we go. We have six more principles in six minutes. Here we go. Oh God, next principle. Are you kidding me? No, principle number five, showtime blue ribbon pig. What does that mean? That means that when you’re at work, when you’re doing your thing, the most important thing you can be doing is what you’re doing. And what I mean by that is this, is that there’s a lot of things that get in your brain throughout the day. You know, something going on at the house, the toilet’s plugged up at the business. I mean, I mean, did I wash my hands completely? But what I’m saying is, is that our society is so far, so much about not being there. I mean, I go around and I look at people in restaurants sitting there across the seat from each other, and they’re both sitting there on their phones. They’re like they’re not even around each other. Here’s a picture of my food. So I used to have a little thing that I used to do, and I know this sounds silly and corny, but it worked for me and that is every time before I’d walk into an exam room I’d clear my head and I’d say to myself showtime the most important thing in the world the most important thing right then and there was to walk in that room and to smile to greet that patient to connect with that patient and to solve that patient’s problem and to answer the age old question of why are you here and what can I do for you. Without thinking about all the things that are pulling on me, without thinking about the phone call I need to make, without thinking about the guy that just yelled at me because a car was parked in the wrong spot out, just whatever, all the stuff that happens all that peripheral stuff you know and I think that’s what happens a lot of times you see employees do this will they bring like you tell me you know leave your family problems at the door when you come in the business it’s almost impossible to do I realize that I mean things affect us they’re at the front desk singing last Christmas I gave you my heart welcome are you do welcome to the business. How are you? I can help you. You see employees though, seriously, there’s a guy the other day at a local convenience store. I said, how are you? He goes, I’ll be good as soon as I get done with my shift. Yeah, exactly. And I go, okay. Inspiring. I said, how are you doing? Just like that. He goes, I’ll be good as soon as I get done with my shift. I’m like, okay, well, so I’d like to go ahead and buy an ice drink and some gas. Alright, whatever bro. Yeah, whatever. Whatever, I mean, wow! Wow! I wanted to hit him with the stick that I use to beat the cowbell. So if you own a business, say you own a construction business and you’re given a quote, forget all the negative in your life. When you go to that family and you’re going to talk about and give them a quote to build a pool in their backyard, you be connected with them and the show time is, it’s show time. And that’s where you connect and that’s where you build your business, that’s where you make your money are those Showtime events. And if you sit there and let your phone, your phone’s ringing the whole time, like, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me. Real quick, now if you decide not to bring Showtime every day, this is the motivational, this is what’s going to happen to you, Zee. If you decide not to bring Showtime on a daily basis. Oh, you have the decision, sure. This is what is going to happen to you. And luckily, Zee, we were able to mic somebody who is a former employee for one of my companies, he decided not to bring Showtime on a daily basis. And without his permission, I put a lifetime microphone, I embedded a chip deep inside his epidermis. He thought it was a flu shot. Right. And this is what, this is the motivational talk he recently gave to a group of young high school kids who talked to him about how they just didn’t want to bring Showtime on a daily basis because they wanted to keep it real. They wanted to be transparent. Now, you kids are probably saying to yourselves, hey, I’m going to go out and I’m going to get the world by the tail and wrap it around and pull it down and put it in my pocket. Well, I’m here to tell you that you’re probably going to find out as you go out there that you’re not going to amount to Jack Squat. Holy cow. Okay, so you don’t want that to happen to you. No, no. So you have to be purposeful and you also have to understand the important moment. It’s kind of like having a to-do list and there’s maybe one thing on the list that is a must-do today. It’s kind of the same thing. I mean, when I was getting ready to walk into that exam room, nothing else mattered. Nothing. Nothing else. It was showtime and the show was for me to laser show, give a great eye exam, connect with the person and make them happy. What I’ve seen a lot, Z, is that people just aren’t mentally aware of themselves. Right? So when you’re saying show time, look at yourself. Pay attention to actually how you’re acting, not just how you feel. Absolutely. So those are those moments. You have them throughout the day. And then when you’re out of the exam room, and you’re out in front of that patient, for example, and that’s my example that I have for my optometry clinics, then you go back in your office and then you can do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, your office and then you can do blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah People love to boo this one. Oh they do. Oh they do. They will line up after you speak and they will sit there and berate you. Their hands, as soon as you ask for a question, the first question up is about this one. Excuse me, why do you hate people? Yeah, why? Just curious. I don’t understand your point six. Point six. Big pig eats first to the trough. What do you mean by this? I’m telling you what, folks. If you’re starting a business, this is going to be a concept. I don’t want this to sound mean, but it should be for you. For you. For you. Come on. It should be for you. The business exists to serve you. It does. And so many times I hear people say, well I want to open up a business to to fill in the blank. Serve the local community. I mean, to, you know, to fill in the blank. To fight with homelessness and to feed. To change people’s lives. The life you’re going to change most is yours. Well, I’ll say it again. The life you’re going to change most is yours when you start a business. We’re going to teach you how to grow that thing, and then you’re going to figure out how to have time freedom and financial freedom. You know, kind of a segue on that, Jack Welch, when he was giving a speech, was talking about he had a bunch of his staff come to him and said they wanted him to create a green light bulb. Yeah, make it green. Make it green. You know, safe for the environment. It was safe for the environment. And you know what? Let’s change the world with a green light bulb and they did all the engineering on it and was gonna be like ten times the cost But not be that much more, you know, it’s not gonna last longer. It’s not gonna have those kind of features I can see one that maybe last ten times longer being right times the cost but it was just gonna be a green Environmentally safe sound more sound not like running like green light. Yeah, and Jack Welch is oh, that’s a great idea That’ll put us out of business and Then we can all go find other jobs. Because what we’re going to do is we’re going to make inexpensive light bulbs and do the same thing, and then make a lot of money, and then with that money we can go change the world. And then we have a business. And so, so many times I see business owners really suffering because they have let other people take their business hostage. Principle number seven. I love this principle. Happy as a pig in the mud. I love this principle because it’s so applicable for everybody out there. If you’re a business owner and you’ve ever had to decide what overhead music will be played or what volume it will be played or what decor you’re going to have or where the decor will be or what the logo is gonna look like or what the color of the logo is gonna look like or made any decision at all, it is impossible to universally appease every single member of your team. But yet as a culture we’re taught, you know, you shouldn’t bring candy to school unless you bring enough candy for everybody else. You shouldn’t make a playlist unless everyone approves it. Everyone gets to chime in on a song. Z, talk to me about this idea of making an environment where you are happy as a pig in the mud. Well, here again it goes back to this idea that it’s your business and you have an idea of what you want for your business. Don’t let anybody take you hostage for it. And just a real quick thing that a gentleman came up to me the last time I was speaking and gave me this little love nugget And I know a little love nugget and it’s really fun and and the idea goes like something like that There’s a book out there called the Bible people the bib could be a bibble. I think it’s Bible Yeah, um and in there it says love your neighbor as you love yourself Love your neighbor as you love yourself and That implies that you have to love yourself first. Now getting on to this point about picking the mud, I mean I think that when you walk into your place, you should be so happy to be in there. It should have the right smell. It should have the right sound. The right people. The right people. The right everything about it because it’s yours. It’s your baby. And you can, you know, you don’t have to do the gamble of the genetic gamble, right? When you have a kid, you’re like, oh, wow, I just think it could go either way. And guess what? It’s yours. It’s yours. You know, so when your business, think of it as a baby that you can create and you need to make sure that you have an atmosphere that you love to be in. Just like a pig loves to be in the what? You know, speaking of creating babies, one thing I just love, I just love this segment I’m just taking another shot. Okay, now, okay, now, okay, we’re moving on. He had to stop himself. Oh, he’s back! Chump, I just wanted to say that you just look so nice in the light over there. Something over there that says me. I just emailed myself right now. I said, Self, that is nice. Mm-hmm, that is nice. Okay, so moving on now. Yes. Please. The O Show. Chump, I don’t know whether I want to move on right now. I just want to recycle it like it’s No, it’s like an Al Gore’s birthday over and over just recycled. We use it we use Let’s reduce Principal number eight. Oh Joe pig-headed, but don’t be a fool pig-headed. Don’t be a fool See, what do you mean by be pig-headed, but don’t be a fool. I mean don’t be pig-headed Don’t be a fool pig-headed is a term that people give that there are people that are being foolish that are being You they don’t have any flexibility, they’re being, pig-headed, they’re being a fool. And I, years ago I had a- You, you, by the way, you have really worked wonders with me about this, because I’m somebody who loves to latch on- You were pig-headed when I met you. I do love, even to this day, I love to latch on to principles, you know, like all wear the same thing every day. Right, and that’s okay. And then you’re like, Clay, you’ve got to flow though. There’s water going around the rock. There’s no need. There’s a time and place for rock, but you don’t need to like, and this could happen, if you’re somebody who’s very principled in your religious views or your worldviews, this can be very tough to learn this. This is, see, this is a very valuable lesson for me and many people out there like me. Talk to me about, don’t be a pig-headed fool, but you also have to be resolved to certain principles. I mean, give us the balance. There is a balance, thank you for asking. You know, there are so many principles and so many things I can talk about. One of the things I really want to encourage everybody out there on a side note, sidebar, is your top five friends around you, if any of them are not encouraging, edifying and and life-giving people if they are what we call the They suck the joy and the bone marrow out of you when you’re around them get rid of them If they’re if they’re not if they’re idiots, you know what I mean by that. I’m not being hateful I’m just like if they’re just people to take you down the wrong road. Yeah over and over there. They’re negative people What do you say when punting people that are negative perpetually? What do I say to them? What do you say? Well, I just I tell them that they’re fired from my life. Do you do this really? Good. Yeah, nobody, here’s the thing, folks. Nobody likes to be ghosted. This whole ghosting concept is just kind of, for you to just kind of like, you know, when I got a new phone, lost your number. Who are you? You know, all this kind of stuff, all the jackassery you do. I have purposely sat down with a few men in my life and I said, listen, I’m just gonna tell you right now that I’m just not gonna spend as much time with you. And I’m moving on. And I’m moving on. Each after seat. And you know, so have a nice life, but don’t be offended if I don’t text you back immediately or I don’t call you back or I’m not seeing each other. I’m moving on. My time, I’m busy, I’ve got things to do. And you can kind of soft sell a little bit to them. You don’t wanna be mean. But on the flip side, you’re being mean to yourself by being a fool and having those kinds of people have access to you. Now in business, you know, you have to make your decisions. What’s best for the business? And yes, sometimes somebody may be in there to scan you out of whatever, whatever, whatever, but understand this, what’s best for the business. We had a patient come in and the lady came in. She was really upset about her glasses. She had picked out. Well, they fit her fine. The prescription was fine. Everything was, everything was good on them. It was very fine. I think what happened was, is that she went home and one of her kids or her husband made a comment that they didn’t like the way they looked on her. And that got her all twisted. Oh yeah. You know. And so she couldn’t just come in. She didn’t think she could come in and say, you know what, I made a mistake in picking out this style or color of frame. She kind of went out there. It was a little edgy. She kind of went out there. It was kind of fun. Looked good on her. But she came in and she was just, so she thought she had to come in and kind of be demonstrative and be like, I can’t see. I can’t see anything on these glasses. These glasses are horrible. This is, you know, I need my money back on these glasses. Good Lord, I can’t see anything. These glasses are terrible. Unbelievable. I can’t even see ya. I can’t believe you sold these to me. I swear, Robert, you is a terrible… Are you going back in time? I’m calling the BBB. I’m calling the… And so then you just calm them down. You go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. You know, let’s… And so then my staff came in, too, going, they’re fine. She’s just trying to, you know, she’s… I go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, You backed that thing up. Yeah, listen, listen, listen. And I looked at him and I said, listen, for whatever reason you want to exchange those for another pair, that’s okay. It’s okay. Just settle down. It’s okay. It’s all right. We’re here to help you. We want you to be happy. We want you to see clearly, comfortably, and be happy with your choice. Amen. Final two principles from the business pig. These are, again, business pig principles taught by Dr. Robert Zona, the 10 business pig principles for success that he has used to grow multiple multi-million dollar companies. Principle number nine, three little pigs. What do you mean by that? It’s so awesome. Well, if you show up on December 7th and 8th, which is our next in-person workshop, I think we have a few tickets left. Do we play or we all sort out? We’re down to the top. We’re down to the final 20. Okay, we got 20 tickets left. So if you’re listening to this, come on out. One of the things we teach is whenever you’re advertising, marketing, you want to have three different branches of that. We call it the three-legged stool. You can call it some other things, but in the story, the three pigs, the person that used just one, i.e. straw, form of advertising, got his house blown away by the wolf. The wolf denotes your competitors. I know this sounds mean, but your competitors don’t have a lot of love for you. They might greet your hand and smile when you’re in Costco with them, or Reesers or Walmart, they may slap you in the back and ask you how… Good to see you there, Dr. Robertson! I love that see, I’m so glad you’re here right now! Yes, of course, you know. I’m going to buy your groceries for you, in fact. Burns, did you cut his brake line? Right, Burns? I mean, just kidding, right? They are like the wolf in the story. The second one used just sticks, I believe, something like that, or mud, I’m trying to remember now. And so, boom, blown away again. And the third one had a combination. So you didn’t have to make a brick, you take straw, you take the clay, you take some other components, I’m trying to remember what it was. Two parts whoop-ass, smash it with your hooves. Yeah, you big it down, you know. And now I’m setting by having three different areas, you build your house, it withstood the enemy, which was your business wolf down the road. If you don’t have three ways to market your business all going simultaneously, you will lose. And that’s what we teach in our workshop. And so to me, it was a kind of a, I thought, well, three, three, three, three, three. Very practical, elephant in the room, men’s grooming lounge, one of my companies. We never, Chuck, you see the ads, we never stop our Facebook ads, never stop our YouTube ads, never stop our retargeting ads. That’s our digital presence. Yep. Then we never stopped getting online reviews ever, and we never stop putting out our signs and doing our mailers. We just never stop. That’s the way it works. We never do it. And that’s how we get in new customers week after week. Final principle we’re going to teach here as we’re short for time, principle number ten. Dr. Z, let the fun begin here. Here we go. Pig advice. Well, let’s fire through these. You can kind of see how you can have some fun with each one of these, but if you’re a pig, give me another pig advice. What would you say? You’d say, Hey, listen, buddy, once you eat well, keep your snout clean. Never squeal on your friends. That’s so big. Don’t be gossiping. Don’t be talking about other people in the workplace. All right, come on now. Be curious. I mean, a pig is curious by nature. And that’s one of the things that I love to see when I see a young person that’s curious, because that curiosity leads to inventions, leads to businesses, leads to ideas to grow, start businesses. I’m curious, do you know the next song that I’m going to choose for name that tune, the final song I’m going to choose? This is for 4,000 mega points. Ooh, 4,000. Now, Chuck, if you get it wrong or right, there’s 4,000 mega points involved here for the right. For the wrong, you lose a total of 5,000 mega points, which means you’re going to have to wear a Christmas suit at the Christmas party. So, uh, Chup, I’m gonna, I’m gonna play the song, and the category is gonna be songs that were sang by men. Okay. Here we go, Chup. Are you ready? Super easy one, by the way. Let me try again here. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it. I got it. I feel like that was a Madonna song, Clay. Nope. Madonna’s not. I know, man. She’s aggressively. Okay, give me one more. Listen, listen, listen. First off, you need to deal with your whole gender bender confusion thing. I thought you said man and it was Madonna’s song. I’m going to go back. Here we go. Now can I tell you the song? Okay, Z, let me tell you. I know where I got confused. What was that? It was Girls, Girls, Girls by Motley Crue. No. No. Okay, Z, here we go. This harkens back. This one’s a special one because it harkens back to Clay’s college days. Ryan Tedder, one of his good friends, now does One Republic. What does it say? Apologize. It’s too late to apologize. It’s too late. Then you’ve got to weave in the Timbaland beating of the seal. That’s what you made this song a hit. But he’s clicked it up and have the other version out next. I think it was more of a gray whale. Okay. So if you’re out there and you’re saying to yourself, you know what, these 10 principles are principles that I need to apply in my own life and business, go to thrive timeshow.com, click on the podcast button. There you can find two pig jokes, every archived broadcast, and Z has two final pig jokes. This is by George Bernard Shaw. Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it. Both get dirty, and the pig likes it. Mmmmm. Oh, wait, wait, wait. They taste great too. A sidebar, the pig is the animal that has the closest internal organ systems as the human does. That’s a little sidebar there. Look at this guy. A little science on there. How did he get on just knowing that by just looking at it? Have you ever seen a pig’s colon? Yes, actually. It’s called sausage. Sausage. Want to attend the legendary Thrive Time Show business workshop for free? Subscribe on iTunes, leave an objective review, and send us confirmation at info at thrive timeshow dot com to claim your tickets. Want to live in a van down by the river? Come by and see us at our Riverwalk offices and we’ll be able to make your dreams come true. Alright Z, we’re back. We have 10 bonus questions. And here are the rules, Z, for the final bonus 10 questions, alright? I’m going to ask you the 10 questions. And per question, you have approximately 3 minutes to answer the question. Should you go over, it’s your show, you do what you want. Oh my! But 3 minutes would be preferable, so we have enough time to get all the questions answered. Oh, perfect, okay. your show, you do what you want. Oh my. But three minutes would be preferable, so we have enough time to get all the questions answered. Oh, perfect. Okay. Here we go. So question number one, coming in hot. What have been the hardest trade-offs that you have had to make in order to become successful? Ooh, the hardest trade-offs that I had to do. Yeah. It was delaying gratification, number one. Number two was choosing to spend time with the people I spent time with. In other words, I had to say no to people I really kind of wanted to spend time with, but I couldn’t do it all. Also too, I remember when I was a dishwasher when I was a teenager. I was a professional dishwasher. You may not know that. Oh, you probably do. I never went to a high school football game because I was always working because Friday nights were the big money nights. I mean, that’s, you know, hey, date night and the couple’s out and I’m bussing. I get tipped out by the waiters at the end of the night. So, you know, you make you make decisions, you make choices and you have to then live with them. And so I think one trade off that you’ve made. Yeah. That you did not just say and I’ve looked at it from the outside. So if you disagree with me, it’s fine. Oh, no, no. Go ahead. I feel like you’ve held yourself. your businesses to a certain high standard, which has caused you to have friction that you don’t often talk about on the show. But you’ve held employees and people accountable to a certain standard, right? So eventually, I’m sure you’ve never been screwed over. You’ve never had a key employee leave you. I’m sure you’ve never had someone try to download your database and give it to a competitor. I’m sure you’ve never involved in litigation. I’m sure you’ve never had people that you’d call buddies or friends or even family screw you and get mad at you as a result of you holding yourself and the company to a high standard. Has this ever happened to you, my friend? Oh, of course it has. And if you’re successful, you’re going to have those challenges and you have to overcome them and then you have to make decisions. And I think that, you know, answering your question on what did I say no to, at times there were, you know, times I would miss, when my kids were real little, I would miss time being around them. But then I was purposeful knowing that, you know, when they’re one, I don’t think they’re going to remember too much. I think I’m safe there, you know. But when they’re 10, it’s a whole different game then, you know. Then they remember, then they get a little fussy if you’re not there. So you know, hopefully you start your business before your kids come around and then you kind of build it while they’re young and then when they get a little older you can actually carve a little time out for them because that’s very important. We just did an interview with Daniel Goldman. He’s probably the top psychologist on the planet. On the planet. And I asked him a question at the end of the show, you know, my last kind of hitting question. I said, if you could go back in time a couple decades ago, what would you tell yourself? And he paused and he said, spend more time with my kids. I thought that was powerful. Mm, powerful. Okay, these questions are hot, hot, hot questions. Next question, question number two. I give you time to think about this, here we go. When building your businesses, did you ever partner with somebody that wanted to grow past your original goals? So you had a goal for, let’s say, the auction or the optometry clinic or some business you’re involved in and somebody who worked for you, somebody you partnered with, you set an original goal, I’m just making it up, to sell 500 cars every Friday. But they wanted to grow well beyond that goal. Has that ever happened to you? You know, ironically it hasn’t. I’m sitting here thinking about all the businesses I’ve started. It hasn’t. I mean, I’m a pretty aggressive guy by nature and I set pretty high goals. So my goals were always a tad bit higher than them. And when I say partners, I mean, even like a good general manager, I kind of feel and treat as a partner. I mean, I think that that’s, you know, when I introduce some of my general managers, I sometimes even introduce them as my partner, you know, because you are a partner in the growing of the business. And that term doesn’t have to mean that they have stock or that they’re, you know, financially, they are financially invested because if the business doesn’t do well, guess what? Chicken butt. They lose their job. I mean, it is all profit sharing, because if there’s no profit, you can’t share anything. More questions about humans, working with humans. How do you handle insubordination? Do you move past it or deal with it right then? Now, quick caveat. I’m giving you these questions because people ask these questions. I know how you handle this. I do know. So this is not me asking. I’m just saying. I know now, but when there’s somebody who is just out of their mind, but you can’t fire them, how do you handle it? When there’s somebody out of their mind and you can fire them, how do you handle it? I mean, just when someone’s insubordinate, talk to us about how you handle these scenarios. Can I tell you a story? Yeah. And in this story, you’ll see how I handle it. Oh nice. Okay. So I have at the time, I believe I had five, maybe six doctors working for me. Yes. And we’re open seven days a week, so there’s a big schedule and people are working hard. And we’re extremely busy. Yes. Well, they have fun stuff. And so I had one of my female doctors, her name will remain nameless, came up to me and said my husband got transferred and I’m unfortunately going to have to leave. I don’t want to, but I have to. No, you don’t want to. To keep my marriage together, that kind of thing. I said, well, I absolutely respect that. She said, our deal was for me to give you 30 day notice. I’m giving you my 30 day notice. That’s very fair. And I said, you know, I do. We did an appropriate hug. HR would have been happy. Nice side hug. High five. High five. High five. High five. High five is kind of my move anymore. It’s quick. It’s quicker. It’s quicker. Or a fist bump. Fist bump’s really good. Fist bump’s good, but girls really don’t elbow bump from across the room that’s the best thing and so I was like okay well I got to get to I got to get to work so I said at my desk I’m starting to get online I’m starting to get a get a letter started up you know to send out looking for good looking for looking for you know good good person good doctor and a little while later here knocking the door there you go open the door it’s another one of my doctors. Just coincidentally happened to meet on the scene. Real quick, I want to clarify. The door, did it sound like this? Or more like that? More like the… The second one? Yeah, the second one. So she comes in and I say, well, hello, how are you? And she says, I’m doing great. I said, well, I’m doing fantastic. Three dollar pleasantries. And she says, well, can I shut the door? May I shut the door? It never goes well when the door gets shut. It’s just a rule of thumb. That’s just a rule. It’s just a rule. Not hard and fast. Unless it’s a marital discussion and you shut the door. That could be a good thing. A good discussion. That’s right. And she looks at me and she says, I hate to say this or I hate to do this. With all due respect. I go, I’m thinking about breaking it. Why are you doing it? Why are you doing it? She said, well, I just heard that so-and-so is putting in her 30-day notice. And well, I just want you to know that I’m going to have to put in my 30-day notice if I don’t get a pay raise and a schedule change. Oh, well, that seems terrible. It seems the way you negotiate those kind of things. First off, you negotiated your facial expression. I’m sure you negotiated your facial expression. Oh, I was just the best poker player and I’m listening with with deep concern I’m nodding and I’m listening and it’s just that I know I know it’d be really really it’s gonna be hard to replace one and two That’s gonna be really tough on you, and I hate to put you that position But that’s where I am and I stopped took me about not even a half a second I smiled and I said you know what you’ve been such a great employee I think you deserve a raise. And that schedule, he should have given you that cheesy, sweet schedule a long time ago. You get both of those things. In fact, let’s make him start today.” And she smiled real big. And she said, really? I said, absolutely. I would never want to lose you. And what am I really thinking in the back of my mind? You’re fired. I’ve got to go hire two now. Now, okay. I want to just break this down. Because there’s somebody out there that right away is struggling with this. I want the people out there to know this. John Kelly, Marshall. Marshall knew me when I was the other way. The other way was immediately, and I don’t know if you ever saw me do it, but immediately I would just fire you at the first sign of insubordination. Then I would always, as a penalty, have to DJ. Marshall, every weekend I DJ. Oh yeah. I’m serious. If someone was insubordinate to me, they’d say, you know what, I don’t appreciate… because what happens is you come back from the show and your CDs have to be organized in order. The CDs have to be alphabetized. I’d open up the case and I would… if you hear that this person I saw, that their CD case was disorganized, I would say, we need to go ahead and organize them very nicely. And they’d go, whatever dude. And if they said that to me, I’d say, excuse me, what did you just say? Whatever dude. I’d go, whatever dude, your ass is fired. And I was like, yes! Yes! Woo! Yeah! And then you started to sort out the CD cases. And then I had to DJ every night. We had to get those CDs in alphabetical order first. This continued, though, for almost a decade, OK? So when you taught me this story, this was like Matrix for me. Immediately I did the move. This is what I shouldn’t have done, but everyone does this. I did it. Whenever you struggle to understand a principle, understand how chess is played, this is the question I asked you. Is that ethical? Yes, of course. I remember Man Cave, I said, is that ethical? Absolutely. I’ll tell you what, employees will quit you on their time, and we feel like it’s bad for us to fire them on our time, and that’s just not the way that it is. It’s your business. You deal with it the way you want to deal with it. So what I did is I went out and hired two new doctors. I got them in place and about a month later about a month I called her up to my room. Hey Just so-and-so doctor so-and-so up to my office. Oh, no She comes be bopping in and she’s in a fantastic. No, absolutely. She’s coming in there be bopping I mean, she’s coming. She’s like, you know, this has been the best month of my life. She’s popping the beep I got the pay raise I’ve always wanted I got the schedule that allows me to do the this and that, the this and that. I mean, you know. I have audio of what she heard in her mind when you called up the office. Because last time she came up there, she got a raise, got the schedule she wanted. Things were great. So this is what she was hearing in her mind. Yes! Here it comes! He might be giving me another raise! Unbelievable! Oh, yes! The great benevolent dictator! This is how Rodman probably felt every time that Kim Jong-un sent him a text. But I’m one dictator, this is great! She walks into my office, and I’m going to save any entrepreneur out there, any business owner hours, hours of your life. Come on now. Hours of your life. I looked at her and I said, Doctor so and so, if things just aren’t working out, you’re fired. In fact, you were fired 30 days ago. I just now get the privilege of being able to say it. Pack up your stuff and hit the road, Joe. I know that that story is not in any way sexual, but sexual to me, it’s that good. It’s an orgasmic story for business. And I can’t make something up that good. It actually happened. I’m like, are you kidding me? And not only that, but it happens metaphorically daily. Sure. In all the businesses. So, this is the question I’d like to ask you then. So let’s say that you know that that employee is screwing you. The contractor is taking advantage of you. You know it. You know it. You know it. And they know it, and you know that they know it. Everyone knows it. Everyone knows it. How long do you pretend like everything’s okay because you need them to keep doing their job. How long? Until I can replace them. Shunda. Unless I want to do the work. I could have fired her that day and I could have, you know, dusted off my scrubs and picked up a few more days and I could have gone in there and got down in the, you know, the… You know about my punching my brother, don’t you? I told you about this story. Oh, gosh, yeah. This is a funny story for all the Thrivers out there. My dad contracted, he got ALS, came down with ALS, was diagnosed with the disease. And we talked, it was really funny, my dad goes, son, I’m going to be dead soon, so I’ve got a couple of questions, a couple of asks. I said, what’s up? I’m trying to keep it light, he can still talk fine. He goes, I want to record a video so I can share with you some things I want to share with you on video for you and your brother. And I know you guys don’t get along at all, because you never have, and I know you don’t like each other and I know but just until I’m dead could you please when he when he if he talks to you and antagonizes you because I’ve seen it happen would you please just go with it go with the flow and I’m going okay that seems like a reasonable request yeah so we go to my dad’s house and right away I parked my Hummer over here parked my Hummer over there and my brother says to me could you move the Hummer? And I think, yeah, I could move the Hummer. So I move the Hummer. And then the whole day is like, hey, is your vehicle? By the way, how much gas miles does it get? I’m like, it’s like eight. He goes, oh, OK, pretty environmentally, pretty environmentally responsible of you. Right. And I go, OK. And I’m the whole and then he’s like, hey, did you vote for Trump? And I said, yeah. And he’s like, OK, so you as a Judeo-Christian you you like a guy who’s you know had multiple affairs his whole life Who really just is morally reprehensible? That’s your guy right? I’m like okay, and then it’s like the entire day is like this I’m trying to get you to take the bait, and I’m not kidding. I made a mental commitment to my wife I’m like I am NOT going to knock him out until his body is in the ground So that was like my thing and I put up with it for so long. And after the funeral, I knocked him out. I have a little back story. At my dad’s funeral, he’s talking about how he’s not happy about the way he was raised and not happy. I’m telling you, it was so hard for me. And then the family, it’s hilarious, but the family that gets me, there’s a few of them. One guy, he was a pastor of a mega church. He texts me and he says, this is the text message, I’ll never forget it, he goes, What your brother said at the funeral was effed up. And he types it out and hits send. And you know there’s that correction tool? Oh yeah. And he’s like, good job. But the rest of the family is like, why would you hit him? Why would you do that? Why would you do that? And I just hit block, block, block, block, block, and I’ve been the happiest guy since that moment. But I mean, I was delaying gratification for the longest time. And I think, I’m serious. I do that all the time. I remember elephant in the room, we had a person who worked for us, this is at the very beginning, who I knew was duly employed for us and a company he was starting. Like he literally was starting his own company while working for us. But he was in my brother-in-law’s wedding and I didn’t have the heart to tell my brother-in-law at that moment, because he’s getting married like that day, you know, like, hey by the way in the last week of discovered your best man is screwing us yes I just told him after the wedding and I don’t regret doing that it is a lot of timing things either sisters timing I think there’s time I think ready to initially I used to feel like I gotta tell somebody right away I feel bad what’s like that song you know living on Tulsa time you should be living on your time living on your time timing is a huge thing though, isn’t it? Is it timing huge? Oh, it is. And as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, you have to do it what’s best for you. Always put it through that filter of what’s best for the business. What’s best for the business? And sometimes it’s you eating what you want to say and then smiling and being nice and going to flow and knowing it’s just a little season. It’s just a little moment. It’s just a little hot minute. A hot minute you’re getting through, but you’ll get through it and then once you get things in place, then you can drop that. Let’s say that something really irritates you, really makes you mad. How long do you now allow something to make you mad before you get over it? How long does it take you to get over something that’s really just making you mad? I mean, you’re talking about an employee doing something or just anything? Well it doesn’t work it’s like okay as an example John Kelly you can relate to this. John Kelly wanted an identification badge to get into the Riverwalk office. Okay he asked somebody can I get an ID badge the person said yes I’ll get it to you tomorrow and this went on. John you could yell it out how many weeks was it two weeks four weeks three weeks was it four and a half four and a half weeks four and a half weeks every day it’s like hey could you get me an ID badge? Yeah, I’ll do it tomorrow. For four and a half weeks, and then finally, I look over there and I watch John having this discussion, and then John just went off, and I let it happen to me. I was like, this is awesome. This is so good. This is a cage fight that has needed to happen for a long time. But for John, it was four and a half weeks of needing an ID card every morning. But then I think he got over it really quick. I think he was mad there and then it was good. But again, John does a very good job of recovering real quickly. How long does it take you? Yeah, the older I get, the less mad I get and the less I stay mad. I mean, I try to do it immediately, you know, because I’m always focused on the positive, focused on the good. And so when something bad happens, and bad is going to happen, you’re already kind of pre-set up for it. You already know. I mean, the idea that someone’s going through the day thinking, oh my gosh, I didn’t realize something bad might happen today. How do I handle this? I actually think now, why hasn’t something bad happened yet? I wish it would happen earlier in the day. So I just get it over with. Right. Yeah, get it out of the way. I think there’s some ways that you can think about things, and you should whenever something comes up that irritates you, you can let it grab a hold of you, and you can be irritated. I’ve seen people be irritated the rest of their lives. Their lives? I mean, I know people that have held on to grudges for 30, 40, 50 years. People talking about the breakup that happened 10 years ago. Oh my goodness. You know, the divorce that happened 30 years ago. 30 years ago. I mean, are you kidding me? It’s still fresh. I mean, really? Too soon. It’s too soon. It’s too soon. Too soon. Stop telling the Whitney jokes. It’s too soon. It’s too soon. Okay, now if you could give advice to your younger self right now? You’re saying, younger self, okay. Here we are. You’re now 30. And I am 58, because I am you in the distant future. No, no, I’m 54, because I’m the current me, but I’m talking to my past self. The point is, you’re 30, I’m 54. This is what I want to tell you. Stop doing this, and life will be better. Or start doing this. What advice would you give to your 30-year-old self now that you are at the ripe old age of 54? I would have invested in real estate sooner. I would have grown faster. I would have delayed even more. I would have been more aggressive in opening up more businesses sooner. That’s what I would have told myself. I said, listen, you’ve got a great life ahead of you. You go get them. Just go a little rough, and if you don’t like it, I’ll pick up on that because you won’t answer probably. For somebody out there who has family, and their family wants, they yearn to be an entrepreneur, uncles, sisters, cousins, sons, brothers, whatever, they say, I see your success, Dr. Z, and I want it. Everyone can make that statement verbally. Sure. But when it is abundantly clear that they do not have the work ethic or the grind needed to do it, how do you handle that? I tell them not to quit their day job and if they want to do something on the side, start it really, really, really, really, really small and see how they go. And what will happen is, or what’s even better is I say, I think that’s a great idea Why don’t you give me a one week? You know what? That’s your best move by the way before you jump into it Why don’t you give me what you give me? Let’s go over a business plan Why don’t you make a business plan and then that just kills it right there because you know They don’t have the work ethic to even make a business plan So do you ever had to sit down with somebody in your extended family? And again, just we’d be very vague so it’s very safe, but very safe where you sit down with someone who is just perpetually Failing in the game of business and you’ve had to sit down and give them that Tough love that wasn’t wanted or do you do you just like let it go? I mean if somebody you know you somebody fairly close to you. It’s just bombing time and time again What do you how do you have that conversation or do you? That’s a very good question And you know there’s a lot of different categories that can come into. Some of it is, is their bombing affecting me financially. If it is, then I feel like I have the open window to talk to them and give them the hard talk, okay? Because now I’m financially involved in the bad decisions that they’re making. And that’s happened, and that’s no fun. And that’s me bringing out the paddle and the black hat and explaining how the cow eat the cabbage. And then trying to get a plan and then trying to put some guardrails on this deal to where we could turn it around or make it better. The other one is casual friends that you just see they’re just headed for a train wreck. And sometimes I’ll say, would you like some advice? And oftentimes they don’t want advice. They think they have it nailed down. They think they have it going on. Gotta unlock. And I think that’s one of the strengths of why we started thrive 15 I agree why we started our online business school right when we started the radio show the podcast in-person workshops the one-on-one business coaching is because we know you don’t know what you don’t know and A lot of times you can see things and is it mean not to not to mention it I think it is it’s kind of like I’m sure you’re getting ready to run over your foot I mean you wanna you’re you know you can help point things out in a way. Now, some people are receptive to it. Some people listen to our podcast and learn from it. We get a lot of testimonials, emails back and going, hey, this has been a game changer, a life changer. Thank you so much, guys. And so those who have ears to listen, I mean, we’re talking and listening, and we’re helping. And anything we’re not covering that you need to be covered, email us. Ask us. That’s what we’re doing today. This is one of these Ask Us segments. But different categories, Clay. I mean, you’ve had to see some young men that you see were train wrecks how what’s the best what’s the worst way you can about it well your life I I’m did something I regret in in maybe and I have the maybe we differ in this idea I used to every time I saw somebody heading for a train wreck if they asked me for advice I would give them candid and honest feedback I used always do it sure in almost universally caused resentment. So as an example, one young man years ago just told me he couldn’t get stuff done. He’s just struggling, can’t get it done. Oh my gosh, he’s struggling. I said, well, here’s the deal. What time do you wake up every day? And he goes, oh, I get up at 7. OK. And what time do you go to bed? He’s like, ah, like 2 AM. I go, well, what are you doing during the day? We make a list of all the things he’s doing. The point is, he’s not working very hard. Sure. So I said, here’s the deal. Your business is not doing well because you’re not focused. So you are going to not, you’re going to need to not go on any trips, date anybody, or watch TV at night. Like you’re doing every night until you’re successful. Once you get there, then you can do whatever you want. But until that time, it’s not going to work for you. Okay? And it was a car rental kind of business, okay? And the guy was like, are you trying to tell me that I can’t date somebody? That I can’t enjoy my weekend? That’s why I started a company. I’m like, I know, but you’re not there yet. So you wanting to enjoy and bask in the ocean view is a lot like me going halfway between Oklahoma and Florida, parking my car in Arkansas and going, let’s stop and enjoy the view. It doesn’t make any sense, man. You’re not there yet. You can’t live like that. It’s a good analogy, by the way. Because I’m very passionate. Arkansas is in halfway, by the way. Well, because I’m very passionate, though, about this. I’m going to Google that. Marshall, will you Google that? It could be better. Yeah, I’ll pull it up. I’ll pull it up. See, you know what I’m saying? That when you’re passionate, though, and I’m trying to tell someone, like, I really, really care about you, man, and I’m telling you, you’re going to lose everything. Get serious. People don’t like that. No, they don’t, and that’s that hard talk that they’re not going to see. But they’re asking me for the feedback. They are. And I tell them, and they’re like, yeah, but… What do you do when you see somebody that doesn’t ask you, but you see them head for a train wreck? I will say, do you want any feedback? And if they say no, then I just have to move on. And sadly, I would say nine out of ten people don’t want feedback. No, they… You want to learn through the minefield. They’re like, I like to discover the mines by myself. I’m just going to run through the minefield and see what’s out there. Hey, look, there’s one over there. I lost them. I mean, it’s unbelievable. It’s just OK. So I would just say I don’t ever give feedback to someone unless they want it. But I do ask, hey, would you be interested in feedback? And they always go, yeah, but your industry is different. I mean, DJ is different than or real estate is different than photography or photography is different. Or that’s mean, you know, I have a lot of times I’ll have a business owner come up to me and just rail and rail and rail about an employee and look at me, go, what do you think I should do? And I go, it’s easy, whack them. And it’s just almost like they’re like, oh my God, that’s the meanest thing you could ever do. I remember we took a guy out to your man cave at your house one time. And you had some hammer laying out there because someone was doing some work by the pool or something. And you told this guy, it was the funniest thing ever, you told this guy, you said, listen, you need to fire the person. And they’re like, yeah, but they’re a friend, they’re a family, I can’t do it. You don’t understand my industry is different, it’s hard to find good people. And you’re like, you’re just telling me they’re costing you more than you’re paying them. They don’t show up to work on time, they never get something done. You said, can you pick up that hammer? He picks up the hammer and you said, every day you don’t fire that person, I want you to just hit yourself in the crotch because it will be less painful. You remember that? Oh yeah. He was a chiropractor or something. Chiropractors, yeah, like the next Monday that he’s like that I Just have a hammer hurt He was like that was just the worst that was the most mean most cruel most inhumane advice now true story Probably 90 days later come back. He goes. That’s the best advice I ever got in that truth But he had to like endure it for 90 days. I don’t I don’t understand he got mad He got mad that we gave him he wanted to ask you the question. I’m like, no, no, you don’t want the truth. You can’t handle the truth. You can’t handle the truth. You don’t want the truth. You can’t handle the truth. Right. And that’s the thing about it is sometimes that truth and that directness is what you need and you need to just deal with it. And when you know things aren’t right, you’ve got to do the right thing to fix it. And sometimes that’s a hard thing. So okay, here we go. What advice would you give to someone who has not yet hit their financial goals, but has to balance a family life, a growing family with a growing business? That’s a tough one. What I always tell them is this, hey, your significant other, they’ll let you know. Work like heck. Work as hard as you can. And whenever you get that text message from your kid or your spouse that says, what’s your name again? And what do you look like? And what if their significant other is a communist, a socialist, or an unmotivated human? Seriously! Seriously, what if? I ask this because my wife, as an example, is ambitious to a point. She gets it. She does. She gets it. But my wife, she… But there was still a day, there was still a day, multiple days, where she says, Honey, I… Today was one. Today, today we had to come. She said today. She says, baby, you have to stay up until 9 p.m. every night. There you go. I go, what? She goes, you can’t go to bed at 8.30 anymore. You’ll stay up until 9.00. I’m like, why are you so hateful? Because she knows my normal, I love the flow. See, if the kids are going to cheerleading, I’m going, I can go to sleep right now. I’ll go to bed like it’s 7. Oh, I love it Like it’s 7 30 and I wake up like it midnight or 1 so today she lays it out She’s listening here. Here’s the deal buddy. You have to stay up till 9 o’clock and I’m going And you also drive the back are forbidden from waking up before 3 Which causes you to go to bed before 9? Yes, exactly. Oh, busted! Double caveat! That just happened just today. That’s what I’m saying. So make sure your spouse has permission. Say, listen, I’m doing this for us. I’m doing this for the family. I’m not always going to work this hard, but it’s startup. It’s like putting that rocket ship up into orbit. I mean, at first it takes a lot of energy, a lot of fuel. I mean, so much fuel that what halves the rocket is just the fuel to get it up out of you know the atmosphere, but then when it gets up there in the orbit It’s just a little little thruster What if your wife is a communist a socialist or has not very much motivation One sorry you get a bad picker. I don’t know what Hopefully there’s a lot of benefit yeah exactly hopefully things are going well in other areas. Well, I don’t know. Maybe if they really feel that way and they just don’t understand why you’re working and why you’re just not home and collecting your free food stamps and chickens and things that they do in the communist countries. That’s a tough one because when you go into business, you have to understand that your spouse is a partner. Yep. Now, when you sit down and you say, listen, here’s what I see. Are you on board? Are you on board? Are you on board? Matter of fact, you’ve got to make them sign. Spunk! Spunk! Are you on board? Spunk! If you think you’re just saying what you want, get out a contract and make them, hey, here’s what’s going to happen. Are you on board? And then have that, and the next time they fuss at you for working, however, what are you working, you pull out your contract. I want to give this encouragement for anybody who’s single. Napoleon Hill did a research of what causes people to fail, the 30 causes of failure. Yes. And one of them was being married to a low ambition person. Now, if you are married to a low ambition person, I’ve only seen it work in two scenarios. I have two scenarios. I’ll be very vague so no one can guess who they are. Okay. One person worked for me years ago, comes to me and says, I want to be successful. I go, okay. I’ve lived at the 89th Lynn Lane, 8900 Lynn Lane office, nice house, they assumed I was doing well, I was doing well. They said, I want to know how can I become successful? This is a person who is really struggling in life. And I said, you need to read Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and think and grow rich. Basically, buy assets, not liabilities. Buy assets, whatever you can. Buy an asset, real estate, whatever, with your savings and then read, think and grow rich. Implement. Well, this guy reads, reads. He grew up poor. He reads the book and see, this is like a renewed mind. This guy’s coming to work like perpetually an oversleeper, getting to work, he goes, what time do you get to work? I get to work like at six, this guy’s getting there at five. He’s over delivering, he finds out I like coffee with just a little hot chocolate in there. He brings that every day, he’s reading books, and this guy’s on fire, fire. Spouse calls me, true story, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. I just want you to know, I don’t appreciate you changing my husband and it’s more of like a redneck II kind of voice It’s more. I don’t appreciate you call my tell my husband what to do. You ain’t gonna change us rubber now This person was so resentful Four years later three years later. It had been a while at one of the Christmas parties They came up to me this person that tears in her eyes I love our life. But it seems like the resentment always has to happen first. Always. Every time. Every time. Every time. It’s like you’re… I hate the analogy, but it’s the best I have. It’s like you’re mentally raping people when you’re forcing them to have success that they don’t want. Crazy, isn’t it? Isn’t it? I mean, people don’t want it. I know, it’s crazy. And yet they want the results of it. Right. They just don’t want the work to get there And that’s the thing I think that this society does I mean our news stations all of our you know all of our social Medias it just shows the end game the end game shows the big yeah Oh, yeah, it shows the big vacationing the Bora Bora You know and the Fiji Fiji’s the big divisions. You know and the Cancun Cancun’s mmm-hmm You know it says shows all that shows the end game. It shows what you get for your hard work. It never shows the late night, the struggles up front, the shoveledness, the I don’t think I showered for two days because I’ve been working so hard. It never shows that part of it. Nobody puts on their Instagram, here I’m captain, and pulled another all-nighter to get the business going. I saw a cool video this week that a friend of mine showed me. It was Kanye West in the studio recording an album that is now a Grammy award-winning album. It shows him in the studio Z for three hours. He’s playing the beat and he’s going, ba ba da ba ba da ba ba da ba For three hours. And by the way, I’ve worked with other musicians who do this too. And it’s because the rhyme scheme, the rhyming pattern matters not more than the words, but as much as the words. Then once he nailed down his scheme, he works on the words. But these people had never worked with a Grammy award winning artist. I mean, these guys won 21 Grammys. And they’re going mentally like… Imagine what it’s like to be in a room with someone for three consecutive hours. You know, do you mind if we film? No. But for three hours, and he finally found one that worked and he’s like, yeah, yeah, that’s it, that’s it, that’s it, that’s it, okay. What just happened? You recorded gibberish. That’s hot, walks out. I don’t think people realize that he’s spending three hours figuring out the rhyming pattern and the syncopation of the words before he even comes up with words. Then he’ll spend a week coming up with the words. That’s work. That’s dedication. But that’s why he wins 21 Grammys. 21 Grammys. I don’t think people realize. See, what was the absolute, the worst moment for you as you were building your businesses? When you were working seven days a week, what was the absolute low point of just overwhelming this stress or maybe the high point of your resiliency where you were just like, oh, do you know? My high watermark was my two-year-old son had fallen and broken his femur. That’s the big bone in your leg. You have questions? America’s number one business coach has answers. It’s your broda from Minnesota. Here’s another edition of Ask Clay Anything on the Thrive Time Business Coach radio show. Welcome back to another exciting edition of the Ask Us Anything segment of the Thrive Time Show. And on today’s show, we are answering the question, What Would Z do? And we are going to be breaking down ten Knowledge bombs that I know are going to bless you what I want to do I want to see I want to I want to ask all the listeners for a quick ask a quick favor before we get started Here I think it’s only fair Everybody out there. I want you to get a piece of paper Or a notepad maybe an etch-a-sketch get something that will allow you to take notes because what you are teaching now, how old are you right now? I’m 54 or I was going to say if you’re a millennial you can use the notes section on your smartphone. Talk to text. Yes. Right. Just clarify. You’re 54 right now. Correct. For the people out there that maybe won’t have an appreciation for what we’re going to teach here in just a second, I want to tee it up here. Throughout your career, Dr. Z, you first built a what kind of business? Optometry clinic. Where are your two locations now? Approximately 31st and Harvard and 71st and Memorial. How would you describe the size of these compared to the average optometrist? They’re above average. Okay. Successful. Humble. What was the second business that you started? The second business was a diagnostic sleep center. Okay, and what is that called? Dr. Z’s sleep center. Get it? I see what you did there. Now, 9 out of 10 startups fail, according to Forbes. That’s true. And Z, did any of those fail, the first two? Did they fail? No, they became, in fact, the largest in the region. Okay, so what was your third business that you started? I started an auto auction. What’s that called? Z66 Auto Auction. Okay, and does it do well? Is it okay? Yeah, it’s the largest in the state currently. Okay, and what was your next business you started? A DME company, which stands for Durable Medical Equipment Company. And we do several things, but the main thing we do are the CPAP machines for people that have sleep apnea that we diagnose in the Dr. Z Sleep Center. Did you not invest early on in Regent Bank, you and Sean Copeland? It was funny because Sean, actually a good friend of mine, approached me to use their bank. I said, well, I’m tired of switching banks, so let’s go buy a bank. He said, great idea, let’s go buy one. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So Sean, did you know Sean previous to him approaching you? I was doing a lecture, or I was speaking at one of those organizations, you know, one of those lunch groupings, I think could have been, I’m not sure if it was Fellowship of Christian Businessmen, or, you know, business dudes that are, you know, really serious dudes. I mean, I forget the name of it, okay? But I was speaking when maybe it was a bit of a tagger to you know that i would like to be a lot to see a serious yes yes yes yes i’d like to have like red cars that that’s not so you guys you know that i was speaking of that he came up to me afterwards and can use card introduced himself and from that point on we became friends and built a relationship and then he’s trying to do we need to start using the bank is working currently at two thousand i’ll forget that, let’s go buy one. My little back story with Sean is, if you’re out there and you don’t know who Sean Copeland is, one, Google the guy, it’s Sean, S-E-A-N, Copeland, K-O-U-P-L-E-N, he is a guy who’s kind of like the Joel Osteen of banking. No doubt about it, and he’s an author, he’s a lecturer, he’s a great guy, he’s an all around… One of the nicest guys ever, and he also gives you a bro hug when he meets you. Does he not? Yes. One of the only bankers I know that gives a basketball style handshake hug combo. Well, he was a basketball player back in the day. It’s an amazing combination. So Sean Copeland, I knew him when he was at Citizen Security Bank. He was one of the youngest people at that bank. Rose to the top. He became the president of the Bixby Chamber of Commerce. I knew him when he moved to Grand Bank and then now Region Bank. So you said, hey buddy, I know you’re going to move to different banks and try to drum up deposits. You’re always going to be a top performer, but why don’t we just buy a bank? You know, the thing about a bank is this, is that I’ve said on different shows that I don’t get involved in a business unless I can control it. But a bank is so controlled by the federal government, by the organization that they’re under, that I felt comfortable owning a minority piece of a bank because we decided when we went to buy it, Sean and I set up a format that nobody would have a controlling interest. Everybody would have, you know, say 10 guys each own 10% kind of thing. And as part of the Illuminati, don’t you control the government? Okay, all right, so now here is… Can I tell a funny Sean Copeland story? Yeah, please, please, please do it out there. Well, his grandfather was a cattle farmer out by where I have my horse ranch. They’re actually neighbors of mine out there. Really? Yeah. And so, anyway, he was telling me a story that some land came up for sale next to their ranch and the grandfather said, we’ve got to go buy that. You know, we don’t want your mobile home parks moving in. It would be the worst. I mean, we’ve got to protect. We don’t want our mobile home parks moving in. We’ve got to watch our flanks. We’ve got to protect our flanks. They’re coming to get us. We’ve got to protect our flanks, family. And they looked at him at the dinner table and said, Grandpa, you know that’s three miles now from where we live? We’ve protected it pretty well. It’s seven layers deep. That’s across a moat. Yeah, it’s kind of far away. So the reason why I say all that is because, yes, you’re my friend. Yes, in many respects, I consider you to be kind of like my business dad. You’ve been there for me. You’ve been more than a brother, more than a friend. It’s awesome what you’ve done for my wife and I and our family. First hiring my wife, and it’s just little things, but my wife worked for your optometry clinic and I didn’t know you super well, but the standard of excellence that you guys created there was inspiring to me. So I would go in the lobby and I would spy on the business and look at the checklists. And we didn’t have smartphones yet where I could take pictures, but I would actually draw. Mentally. I’m serious. I would draw pictures of the checklist. I would go in there and I would ask, why does he set up retail this way, that way? I studied your company and it created a source of inspiration for me to see a guy killing the game in optometry. Then at a time in our life where we didn’t have a lot of money, we were starting DJConnection.com. I worked at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV, a time where you probably should not have said yes. You agreed to meet with me for lunch and taught me a lot of things about the game of business. One of the first guys who was adamant about advertising. And I can say, Chuck, this is the easiest part of business, is marketing and branding so easy. Fun stuff. Sales so easy. No, just be good. Isn’t marketing and branding so easy? It’s fun. Sales is easy. But then you get into managing people and you have to get to a place where you have core principles that you adhere to pretty much 100% of the time. You have core principles that you adhere to. And Dr. Z said, well, Clay, I have these 10 rules for success I want to teach you, 10 business pig rules. Z, when did you come up with these rules? This has been, I formulated them over the years of business. But when did you get down to 10? I’m going to go back to one thing you said. First of all, thank you for all the kind words. And I do see you as a business younger little brother or son I like I like both of those and when your father passed from ALS a few years ago It was a really bonding moment for the two of us in time. Yeah put together Getting you through the grieving, you know motion of that, but I will give hats off to your wife Vanessa that used to work for me Yep, and that’s how we met was through her Yeah the fact that she could see the inner man that you were Because the dude that you were when you came to pick her up was a dude that we all we all sat around the break room and thought what on earth is she with him? The combination of dumb and aggressive made it tough. I mean really I mean the fact that she could see through your your crusty outer crusty outer shell into a soft little inner jelly goodness that you are. Jason talked about this morning in one of our meetings, but if you’re Kanye West and you’re known as having the Kanye scowl, that’s cool because you’re Kanye West. If you’re Eminem and you’re known as being like, you know, intense, but in your Eminem that’s cool. But if you’ve got nothing, and you’re just dumb and aggressive, that’s not a move. I mean, you pull up in your car and the walls would rattle. I mean, you had that thing cranked up so loud. He’s like a clam, right? There’s a pearl inside. He’d come in all snooky-eyed and pick a fight with me. So I’ve got to ask you, when did you finally distill your observations from years of experience running companies into these 10 rules? Well, what happened was I got, like you, except I didn’t get paid, I got asked to speak at an event. And so you speak and then you keep your notes and the next time you work on it you keep your notes. People love, you know, hey, I’m going to teach on my 10 points today. Oh, they just, they light up. They’re like, oh, I have 10 points. I don’t wanna miss one of these, you know. They’re writing them down and they’re focusing on it. And it kinda helps direct your, you know, your conversation and then you get a theme. I got a, I themed it up. I got one that’s a little unusual. It’s not unusual to have a pig as your theme. Whoa, let me get a wood block. It’s not unusual. Whoa. Okay, back to you. But so I kind of, through speech writing, I formulated these ten, this was a speech that I gave. Okay. And so it kind of forced me to sit down and go, what are my, what are my, okay, here’s what it looks like, how can I put that into this format? And so. And all of this goes under the title of what would Z do in my mind. So I’m going to read the principle and then the business pig principle. I’m calling these, these are Dr. Z’s 10 business pig principles for success. Right, exactly. And I would tell everybody out there that owns a business, if I walked up to one of your employees and said, hey, how would you handle this situation? One of the things that should go through their mind is, how would my owner slash boss handle this situation? And if you haven’t taught them or given them the ability or the action steps in order to do that, I would encourage you to do that. I got inspired by those little bracelets years ago that came out, those little rubber band bracelets. WWJD. Yeah, what would Jesus do? That’s a really good way to think through it. You’re at a fork in the road and which way would he go? You don’t know what to do. What would he do? What would he do? That’s just a real principle that I’ve always enjoyed having because a lot of times I’ll have an employee come to me with a problem and I look at them and I’d say, well what would I do? And they’d go, oh, well you do this. Just to demonstrate the mastery of how locked in you and I are now, we’re going to teach a principle, and then I’m going to play a song on the cowbell. And you can guess what song it is. Perfect. See if you can see how locked in we are. Oh, this is one of my favorite songs. Yeah, this is one of my favorite games I’m in. Here we go. So principle number one. Name the tune. Pigs get fat, hogs get butchered. What does that mean? What does that mean? I was taught by that from a judge that I met from Racing Pigeons, which is a whole other show. We’ll get into that. You’re making this up. No, no, no, no, no. It’s a thing. Google it. It’s a thing. Racing Pigeons. I did that for years. His name was Dick Ott. Pigeons? No, no, no. He taught me that saying. And as soon as he said it, it was just like a light bulb went off in me. It’s just like my blood started to boil. I just thought it was one of the coolest things ever because what it deals with is greed. It deals with greed. And there’s a lot of ways business owners can be greedy. One of the ways business owners can be greedy is pricing their product or their services. So high. So high. Hey, how much does your smoker cost? $1.2 billion. What do you think about the philosophy that has been taught by many consultants all around the world? If people are willing to pay for it and not complain about the price? You should just keep raising it? Well, there is something about that. But then the point is that the pig raises it until he gets one or two complaints and then goes, okay, I know I’m probably there. The hog continues to raise it until he stops selling it. You see the difference? So the pig goes, you know what, hey, I raised five bucks, no one complained. Hey, I’m going to raise it another five bucks, no one complained. And then when he starts to get a little bit of pushback and some complaints, he probably knows they were kind of wanting to complain before but they just didn’t know how to verbalize it. But my philosophy was this, why raise the price when you can expand the building, when you can hire more doctors, when you can just expand that. There’s always a limiting membrane. Don’t let the price or the greed be your limiting membrane. And the other thing too is with employees. I know so many people that just beat up their employees on price. They will not pay them well. They won’t pay them well, yeah. Listen, if you don’t take good care of your employees, especially your good ones, somebody else will. Oof. And that’s another component. That’s also a dating tip. Yeah. Okay. But that’s another component of greed. The third area that I see so many times is people that own a business just want to beat their vendors up. They want to get in there and the sales rep comes in the door and pretty soon they come in every two weeks and now they’re every month and now they’re every six weeks and now you don’t even see them anymore because they’re tired of getting beat up on price. Come in and go, well you need to knock that thing down another two points, two percentage points. Thinking about making a switch. I mean I’m thinking about sending this back up for negotiations. The thing about it, it’s got to be a win-win. Let me give some specifics to this that I’ve asked Dr. Z about over the years. I think, Chip, it will be helpful to add to the show notes. One, as you just said, we need to make a win-win in all scenarios. It can be a win for the customer, a win for the employee. Right. We call it the three Ps. You want to have a business that’s profitable. Yes. You want to have a product that you’re proud of. Yes. And you want to have people that you like working with. The three Ps. Absolutely. Also, you want to make a profit of about, what, Z, 20%? 25%? Is sort of that target. Some industries are higher, some are lower, like home building. Somewhere between 20 and 30 is a pretty healthy margin. If you’re shooting for more than 30, you’re kind of getting a hug. You see guys are like, I made a 70% margin on this Sun Tzu home remodel. It’s my only one I’ve ever gotten, though, but I swear I crushed it. Right. Okay, that’s not going to work. The Johnson’s are not goddamn good. I got him good now cuz now see I’m gonna queue up our first song Show name it. I want you to think about the song I’m gonna play it as I play it on the cowbell want you to ask yourself to see what song is this on this edition of name that tune I’m a former DJ. I know I know Thousands of songs and I’m not it could be any song I know so what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna give you a genre that way we narrowed it down. No, no, no, don’t even, don’t keep in this moment. No, I just, okay, it’s a song that was sang by a male artist. Okay, got it. I think I’ve narrowed it down pretty easy. I think I already gave it away. Okay, here we go. Oh, that’s easy. Michael Jackson, Beat It. Yes! That was impressive. Oh, well, thank you. I don’t know how you do that every time. It’s crazy. It’s crazy good. To demonstrate how out of sync Chup and I are now, Chup, I’m going to tee up a song here. This song was sang by a male artist. And I’m going to play it. I want you to see if you can guess what it is. I know it. On top of Old Smokies. No! It’s Purple Rain. Purple Rain, Purple Rain. It’s so obvious. We haven’t spent enough time together. We need to get more in our splurges. More in our flow. Okay. Principle number two from Dr. Z’s Business Pig Principles for Success. Principle number two. Be the pig at breakfast, not the chicken. What does that mean? What does it mean? Well, let’s look at the rolls at breakfast. My love rolls. Oh, yeah. That’s that place where you throw them at each other? I went there this weekend. You did? Yeah, yeah. Lambert. Lambert. Lambert. Shout out to Lambert. The Throat Rose. Hey, you know what? Are you serious? You went there? I went there on Friday night. Let me celebrate this moment. You went to Lambert. I went to Lambert. Oh, my God. The Throat Rose. One of the best restaurants in the world. He could have possibly gone to. How did that happen? Unbelievable. Z and I are insane here. We can’t make this stuff up. So, being the pig means you gave your life for bacon, ham, sausage. That means fully committed. In other words, you are all in. The chicken lays an egg, and you know, it’s kind of like, maybe I’ll lay an egg tomorrow if I feel like it. Let me go off for a second. This is something I hear all the time. I see people say all the time, I’m going to try out this idea and see if it works. Because if this idea works, then I’ll go ahead and keep pursuing it. I’m just going to try this, but my fallback position is this other job. I’m going to put a little bit of money into this coffee shop, but if it requires work and I don’t get traction, I am going to stop. See, why is that such jackassery to not be the pig at breakfast. I’m going to take an example. I was mentoring a young man who wanted to open up a swanky clothing store. You know, that swank that they have, those pants with the swag. Swagalicious. The kind of stuff that Kayla would buy. Yeah, exactly. You know, the kind of cool t-shirt, very stylish, you know. Crazy socks and all that stuff. And a few months later, we have another meeting and he comes by to kind of… uh… Commiserate. And I’m like, what’s up? Because I think I’m gonna have to shut it down, man. Shut this thing down, bro. And I’m like, what’s going on? And he goes, well, trying to find good help and I’ve got this dude on Saturdays that just keeps stealing from me, I think. You know, man, just giving free stuff away to his friends, and robbing the kitty, and all that kind of stuff. I’m like, well, why don’t you just… Why don’t you get in there and work on Saturdays? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, what he said you you said to him you said buddy you gotta be willing to do whatever it takes and this is what he said to you surely you can’t be serious I am serious and don’t call me Shirley I don’t quite understand the exchange but that’s what happened well that’s the thing about it is is that when you in a pulling dynamite book he talks about burning the boat burn the boats and what that means is that from one island that would go and attack the next island yes and the idea was is that there was no retreat there was no plan B, we were either going to take this island or die. I mean that’s a huge, you think about that, just the mindset of that. Think about this, after reading that book, I read that book 2000-ish, then I had a lunch with you teed up by Kylie, your manager, who is still there, by the way super excited for the holiday party, Christmas party is coming up very soon. Clay, I just want to point one thing out, when you pulled up for lunch and you lit your car on fire, it’s not the same thing okay not only do I have to burn your car bro I took that to be literal burn the viewings I was also one of the early jihadi recruits and so I just went ahead and pulled out the manual for car bombs the point is, seriously I had just finished reading that book and I met with you and I remember this, you said Clay, can I be frank with you and I go okay I thought you’re Robert but okay you said this you said you have got to advertise you eventually have to buy an ad you have I and I remember kind of like having quite well but yeah but I can’t afford it you’re like listen I’m not a paid consultant just buy an ad I had you were just very direct on that and I remember going I’m a jerk. You got up and went to the salad bar. I remember going, I wrote that down, I’m like, this guy, what the… Because Vanessa and I were in a spot where I’m working at Applebee’s, Target, and Direct TV, three jobs. Vanessa had a job at Office Depot and Oral Roberts University. And I remember going, I don’t know how we’re going to do this. And so I went and talked to Vanessa. I’m like, burn the boats, Dr. Z. It’s like an hour-long windup. And I’m like, we’re going to have to turn off the air conditioning or the heat we gotta do something. I don’t know what we have. That was a powerful moment in your life. No seriously and we actually sold we had a white car I can’t remember it was like a I want to say it was it was an American model like a Buick or something my parents had sold for me that my parents sold to me for like nothing it was very low cost but I sold that and we just had the Mazda MPV and she started walking to work and she would drop me off at my jobs And we decided to buy a yellow page ad From Sally who is Lewis Lewis, that’s right Who is the mother of one of your clients Kevin Lewis Lewis riffing and it was like two grand a month Is it hmm? See has there never been has there ever been a better time in American history? I mean right now you can turn on your YouTube ads or your Facebook ads months to months man week to week. See, do you remember the times when you had to commit to an agreement for like a year to buy a Yellow Page ad? I know, I tell you what, business owners starting today have got that part of it much easier. Oh, it’s so easy. I mean, it’s so much easier than we had it back in the day, but I remember, I’ll tell you what, you put that picture in there and you made sure you had the big ones here up front. I mean, come on now. I was like, stop it now. Full page, it was hot. It’s like fishing for fish in a barrel. Jeff Ramsey was my first inbound call. You remember? Jeff Ramsey. Oh yeah. It’s crazy, you were saying the other day on the show, Clay, you had to commit to whatever marketing strategy you were going for for a year. There was no A-B testing, there was no trying things out. It’s like, here we go. Let me tell you how I did it. Dr. Z said if your ad doesn’t grab somebody by the throat, Z, can you explain what kind of ad you want, if you’re going to launch an ad, what your ad has to do in terms of getting the attention of your ideal and likely buyers? Well, you’ve got to have a call to action. The ad has to inspire you. How many times right now you’re listening right now You’ve heard an ad on the radio. You’ve seen an ad in a magazine or newspaper. You’ve watched an ad on TV You go, huh? Yeah, yeah, I don’t know and then the ad comes along that makes you laugh makes you remember it makes you go I’ve got to have that thing. If I don’t have that thing I may I May not make it. I might not I might not I do my quality of life. I do need a ham from the hamlet. I need a ham from the hamlet. Honeycut ham. Honeycut ham from the hamlet. You have to have a call to action and in order to do that, you have to have some kind of component of a deal that is just so awesome, so incredible. Back in the day, now it’s like you want to drive them to a website, you want to drive them to something else, but back in the day, my whole goal was to get them to pick up the phone and call me. I thought, I’m going to have something so crazy, so outlandish, so over the top, call to action, they have no choice but to pick up the phone and call. Because that was the move back in the day. All I did was I looked at my competition and they had an ad that said something like, started in 1984, founded in 1984. So I’m going, well, conceived in 1980. Yeah, that was you. So I’m like, okay, I get that. And then it said we have over 100,000 songs. I thought to myself, talking to Z, I mean, I could conceivably get up to a million songs. So I wrote something like, we can get up to a hundred and ten thousand songs, or something just more than that. I just one-upped them and I said, we’ll be any competitor’s price. And my ad was smoking hot, dude. It worked. It got attention. I put my head… That’s what advertising does. If done correctly, it makes the phone drink. My name is Chad, owner of Home Cleaning Solutions. Give us a call, give your mom the day off. And I’m Todd, and I own Custom Cars Detailing, because nothing sucks more than a dirty car. Call us up! Yeah! Alright, we are just two startup companies making it happen. Making it big. And we’re gonna be bigger than life. From the top! And nothing says to the top, bigger than life, like a giant digital billboard! Billboards are a little pricey though, so check it. We’re sharing one! Okay, okay, check it. The billboard goes live at 5pm. Rush hour baby! We gotta count down in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1! What? We’re on the billboard! Yeah! Woo! So we’ve actually seen our recurring services go up 360% just since Starwind Clay. 360%? Yes, sir. All right, Thrive Nation, today’s a very special occasion because we’re joined here with a client who’s just a great guy, a pleasure to work with, low drama, hardworking, and he’s somebody out there, I believe you’re gonna relate to. He’s a business owner, he’s a family man, and he’s wanting to grow his business so he can provide for his family and expand his impact. Brian, welcome on to The Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? Thank you, Clay, thanks for having us. So real quick, so that our listeners can verify you’re real, can you tell us your website address? And I’m gonna pull it up right now so people can see it. It’s perfectclean.net. A perfectclean.net. I’m gonna pull it up on the screen so everyone can follow along. And it’s a perfectclean.net. And as I pull it up, can you tell the listeners what are the services that you provide at a perfectclean.net? We provide window cleaning, pressure washing, and gutter cleaning in the Broken Arrow, Oklahoma area. And how did you originally hear about us, whether it be the conferences or the podcast or the workshop or the coaching. How did you originally come in contact with us? Yeah, I came out to a conference a couple of years ago and that’s how I got introduced to Thrivetime. Okay, so you, we’ve had the pleasure to work with you and I’m excited about your success, but before we get into the success, can you tell the listeners what motivates you to grow your business? Because you are a very, very sincere person and I absolutely love that about you. I think of you, I think of this is a guy who is a sincere guy, loves his family. Can you share with us what’s motivating you to grow your business? I believe for me, you know, we’re called to just, not just survive, but to thrive. So for me, it’s part of my calling. I believe that it’s not just to take care of my family, but also to impact my city and this nation with the gospel, and we’re doing that through business. So when working with you, we’re going through a lot of systems simultaneously. So some people will call me because they’re, what happens is I’ll work with a client, and they’ll have massive success, and they’ll tell their friends, oh, they really helped me with my accounting. But then I’ll have another client I work with, and they’ll tell their friends, oh, no, no, they helped me with my branding. Someone else will say, no, no, no, it’s the workshops. And we do all of that included. So I want to go through kind of the line item of a lot of the things we’ve worked on together to help you grow the business. So first is implementing merit-based pay or incentivized pay. You know, if you’re a waiter and you’re watching today’s show or a waitress, or you’ve ever been one, you get paid primarily based upon tips. If you do a good job, you get paid more. Um, there are great attorneys out there who understand the game. The better you do, typically the more you make. There’s professional athletes that watch our show. The better you play, the bigger your contract is. But sometimes in small business, companies can drift away from merit-based pay. Tell us about the merit-based pay system and how that’s impacted your business. Oh, it’s been a game changer. Of course, for us, we’ve been paying hourly for the past 10, 12 years. And of course, you’re paying people even when they’re taking breaks at Quick Trip. But once we implemented incentivized pay, it’s actually, I didn’t know how well it was gonna work, but it’s actually motivated, especially our top performers now, we have one last pay period, he almost made double what he would have made on hourly pay. So it’s been a game changer. It’s so important everybody implements merit-based pay. Second is having the idea of having a weekly meeting for somebody to meet with you, to look at your business and to make sure it’s not drifting. What kind of an impact does that have knowing that you’re going to have a weekly meeting every week to look at your business, to work on your business, to make sure that it’s not drifting? I think for me, it’s, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s been very helpful. Um, I think when you, as a business owner, you’re caught up in the middle of just the daily decisions, making everything work, but not, uh, sometimes setting that time aside to take a look at what’s going on with your business. Maybe not until the end of the month. So when you have that weekly meeting, you’re actually able to see a play by play. This is how we’ve done in the past week. This is where we are. You’re able to, uh, to, to, to analyze and see how well you’re doing, uh, as opposed to your goals. And it just keeps you in touch with the business, um, as, as you go along. So one of the things we do every week, and this is not the only thing we do, but one of the things we do is we want to look at all 13 aspects of your company, all of these certain aspects. And one of those is marketing and branding. And it’s really important that you get leads. So if you don’t have leads, your business won’t succeed. Can you talk about the search engine optimization, how much that’s impacted your business by having people that are obsessively focusing on optimizing your website? Yeah, we’d worked with a previous company before and we were optimized for something that we weren’t even getting calls for. And just working with Thrive Time and Clay, just the changes they’ve made to our website, we’ve started getting organic leads. We’ve gone from not showing up on the first page of Google to first page, first actually in our city for window cleaning. So that’s been awesome getting those calls and people finding us organically when they just search window cleaning Broken Arrow. Now, once the leads come in, you gotta have a sales workflow or a sales system. So you’ve got to have a call script and you got to have pre-written emails and pre-written text messages. You have to have packages you can sell. Talk to the listeners out there about the importance of having scripts and actually having a sales system in place. Yeah, that’s been very crucial for us because before working with Clay, we didn’t really have a sales system. It was basically we took the call and just asked the customers what they wanted. And, you know, we would just try to offer them whatever they were asking for. But having a sales system is helping us to be consistent. It’s helping us to make sure that we’re pitching. Like one of the big things has been recurring services. So we’ve actually seen our recurring services go up 360% just in start with clay. 360%? Yes, sir. Well, and you know, this is so powerful because you have a window cleaning company, I have a haircut chain, I’m involved in a dog training business, I’m involved in a haircut chain, I’m involved in a marketing company, I’m involved in, you know, a home, home remodeling, different industries. And what I find is when you have a model that can be recurring, that’s incredible. So for the dog training business, Brian, I can’t really convince our clients to train their dog every 30 days because that doesn’t make any sense. But if there’s a homeowner out there that loves their home and they want to make sure that the house is in good quality, it stays in good standing, that their house doesn’t drift into a dystopian disrepair situation, there are services that you offer that are recurring. Can you tell the listeners about the recurring services that you guys offer? Yeah, some of the recurring services we offer is, we do offer window cleaning, of course. We also offer gutter cleaning and pressure washing. We see a lot of that, especially with gutter cleaning in the spring and in the fall. We also have clients who, basically, especially once they have your service, they want to keep those windows looking clean. So it’s been a great benefit to us and to them to offer them a recurring service where they don’t have to worry about it and they can just enjoy their view and enjoy their home. Now, I like you, I actually talk about you about every 48 hours. I don’t know if you’re aware of that, but about every 48 hours, because we have a more, every single morning we have a business coaching meeting where we analyze every single client we work with and we make sure that the clients aren’t drifting. So every single morning we review the clients. There’s 160 clients. So if you kind of do the math, we have four of those meetings a week. So we’re looking at every client about every, you know, three, four days. I mean, we’re looking at your account, making sure you’re doing well. And how much has that helped to have a team that is pushing you? Whether you can see what we’re doing behind the scenes or whether you see it in the meeting, how much has that helped you just having a team that’s behind you, pushing you to victory? I think for me, it’s been really great because on my own, actually before coming to Thrive, I was actually feeling stuck and a bit overwhelmed with the business. I just felt like we’d plateaued and it’s been great having a team working with me, one, helping me keep me accountable and also sharing new ideas and also working on the back end with the website and getting us ranking and get those calls coming in. Now one of the things I struggled with when I was first starting my first company called DJConnection.com was implementing the thing called the Dream 100 system. And on part two of today’s show, we’re going to get more into the Dream 100 system, but that’s where you make a list of your ideal and likely buyers and you reach out to them. And it occurred to me at a very young age because I was building djconnection.com that there was a very low probability that the top venues in my community would start referring me by default. It became very clear to me that the top bridal shows, the top bridal stores, the top wedding jewelry stores, the top venues, the top caterers, they weren’t going to wake up with a burning desire to start referring me. And it occurred to me, you know what? I have to reach out to these people and consistently, if I’m ever gonna get them to refer me, because at that time, remember I was building America’s largest wedding entertainment DJ service. How much has the Dream 100 system, by implementing the idea of consistently reaching out to your ideal and likely buyers, how much has that impacted your business? It has greatly. I think you can have the best service in the world, but if nobody knows about it, they can’t utilize you. So for us, just implementing the Dream 100 pretty much every week, going out, interacting with our potential clients, people who can bring us referrals has been a game changer. If you’re, if there’s somebody out there who’s in need, a lot of times people go to Thrivetimeshow.com, I’ll pull up the website real quick here. When they go up there, they think that success is for somebody else. And I think it’s because some of our success stories are so big. I think when people see the success of Shaw Homes growing from 15 million to 160 million, or they see people like Rustic Cough having dramatic success, or they see Oxifresh opening 500 and something locations. A lot of times they start to feel like, man, I don’t know whether I qualify to have success. And I think it’s because they’re comparing themselves from where they’re at now versus where OxyFresh is now. They start to look at where Kola Fitness is now. And they start, they go, man, Kola Fitness has multiple locations of their gym. I could never do that. And people start to feel discouraged, but we do have a scholarship program that we have, and we don’t do it for every client, but we charge $1,700 a month, one seven zero zero per month to help our clients out. And that’s what we charge, $1,700 a month. And we operate at a 20% profit margin, but we also have a scholarship option to help out people that maybe are in need, or maybe you need to hand up, or maybe people that just need somebody to help them get to that next step, but maybe they can’t afford that $1,700. What would you say to anybody out there that’s thinking about scheduling a 13-point assessment, but maybe they don’t feel qualified? Maybe they feel like, I just don’t know if the time is right. I don’t know if I have the money for it. What would you say? I’ve been that guy, so I can definitely relate to that. I would say that, and that’s what happened to me. The first time I came out to the conference. I hesitated, but it’s exactly what I needed. What I found is you do have to take that leap of faith. Clay and his team, they have proven systems. You might look at yourself and look at your business and see, how can I get from where I am today to some of these testimonials that they’re talking about? But it’s a proven system. You just work it, it works. It’s very much like a franchise. It’s very much like a franchise. What I love about working with you, and Carter’s always speaking positively about you. I knew you’d be a great fit for our program because of your integrity and what you stand for. But Carter was telling me, he said, Clay, we sent out the mass text message and Brian didn’t fight me on it. We did it. It produced results. Can you talk about that? How has the text-based marketing started to impact your business now? Yeah, at first I was a bit skeptical. I was like, I don’t wanna bother our clients with all these text messages every month. So I was a bit hesitant, but as soon as we implemented, it’s actually been very helpful. One of the things that I noticed was that we were actually able to reach some clients that we hadn’t done work for even in a couple of years and were getting reconnected with them. And then some of them actually ended up becoming recurring clients. So it’s been very helpful. Now we have our upcoming workshop in June where we’re going to have Tim Tebow will be there. That’s the legendary two-time Heisman Award winning football player. He’s a well-known outspoken Christian, you know, then you have John Lee Dumas, who’s the host of one of the most successful podcasts in the world right now, folks, it’s called EOfire.com. He’ll be there. You’re gonna have the founder of Rustic Cuff. It’s a brand that has done very, very well, rusticcuff.com. And we’ve actually done some work with Jill Donovan. It’s rusticcuff.com. They sell millions and millions of dollars of these custom cuffs for women. It’s an incredible brand. And I can go on and on listing off all the speakers that are going to be there. Colton Dixon will be there. But once you get past all of the big names that are there, and you scroll down, you say, what am I going to learn at this conference? What am I going to actually learn? Well, we don’t have any upsells. There’s no get-rich-quick scheme at the back of the room. No one’s high-pressuring you. We have scholarship tickets available to make it affordable for everybody. But let me get your thoughts on how has the conference itself impacted you in your life? How did that conference itself help you? Yeah, for me, I’d highly recommend it to everybody. The first time I came out, I was sitting in the conference and I was thinking, where have I been? One of the things that I realized was, because I knew I had a problem in my business and it was very clear, I didn’t have the systems in place. It was just highlighting all these holes in my business, and you had the solution. So I’d recommend it to everybody. Just come check it out, and you won’t leave the same. There’s tons of value. Now, most conferences at the end, what they do is they go, now, folks, we have four availabilities, and you need to sign up right now because we have. And there’s a lot of pressure at the back of the room. There’s a lot of, I want to talk to you about that because I believe, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, I believe when our conference ended and you walked out and either decided to become a client or not to become a client, there was no pressure, nobody in the back of the room beating you over the head trying to get you to sign up for something. Can you maybe explain that? Because I think that’s the big hesitation people have when it comes to coming to a conference is they assume that that’s going to happen. Yeah, there was no sales pitch at all. It was basically just tons of massive value and just how to grow your business. And pretty much it was just like, hey, if you want to work with us, you can work with us. You know, if you don’t, you know, you don’t have to. Yeah, that’s good for it’s interesting. So I’m going to scroll down, look at this page real quick, because I want to get your thoughts on these things, because you’ve got a chance to really implement a lot of this. But at our conferences, you know, you’re in a room, there’s about, we cap the attendance at our big one in June, around 300 people. But then we have smaller conferences we do all throughout the year where you’re going to have about 150 entrepreneurs there. You can ask questions, you can take notes. We serve lunch both days. Some of our clients travel to our event from out of town, like Michael Levine’s from California. I’d say 80% of the attendees are not from Tulsa. And so before somebody comes to a conference, they usually want to know, you know, what’s this thing going to be like? I tell people we do a 30-minute training session followed by about a 15-minute Q&A, question and answer session, and then we take a break. And we do that for 16 consecutive sessions over two days. So I always tell people, I mean, you’re going to show up and we’re going to hand you a workbook, but you’re going to leave with just pages and pages of notes, and you’re going to leave with an action plan. But how would you describe what that conference is like for people that have not attended before? Oh, man. Yeah. I mean, the conference is high energy. I mean, you just get to meet all sorts of people in different phases in their business. You get to interact with them, get to hear their stories, but also get a lot of good content on actionable items. One of the things I love about Clay is that he’s done this himself. He’s not just talking about some theory, he’s proved it and you get actionable items that you can actually implement in your business right away. People always ask me too, they’re Brian, they always say, well, Clay, why do you still own companies? Why don’t you just do coaching full-time? And I say, well, I don’t know what that means. I mean, I get up at three every day and I go to bed at nine. My flow is I get up at three, work until about five or six, and then I hang out with my family and then go to bed, and that’s kind of my flow. But I find that I enjoy running a business. I actually enjoy, I believe that the Bible tells us, I really do believe this, that the Bible is very clear. We’re supposed to work as unto the Lord, and someone can disprove me on this. And I know the Hebrew word for work means worship, and the word for work means what? The Hebrew word for work means worship, and the Hebrew word for worship means work. So people say, well, huh? I mean, so I kind of view it as like my work is like my praise and worship every day. And I really enjoy helping clients like Brian, and that’s why I love showcasing their success. And again, on part two of today’s show, we’re going to do a deep dive into the Dream 100. But I want to get your thoughts on this. I mean, we’ve got these boxes, we’ve broken up the whole system into 14 boxes. So box one, knowing your revenue goals, how has that impacted you knowing your actual goals now and what you need to do to break even, how much has that impacted you having a clear understanding of your numbers? Yeah, I think for me, you know, in the beginning we were just kind of going off of feelings. And but having clear goals, you have something that you can actually attain to. Speaking of which, we just hit our first recurring revenue goal yesterday. So that was awesome. So you know where you’re going and you can actually work towards it. So that’s been really exciting knowing what our goals are. Amen to that. Now we move on to these other, again folks, this is all, if you want to follow along, folks, you can go to a web page we have here. It’s free to download. You just go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash millionaire. So you go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash millionaire. And when you go there, you can download my newest book, A Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich for Free. You can just download it and then we’re reading right now. We’re just going through right now. We’re breaking it down right now not from feelings We’re going through a specific page in the book and this is page 5 All right So the box number three we have to know the number of hours per week where we are willing to work and you’re a big Family guy you’re a big church guy. You’re a big business guy. So you’ve got one life You got 24 hours a day And I know you’ve told me multiple times that your family comes first you want to make a big impact on your community You also want to be a great husband. These are things that you’re focused on. Can you talk about the importance of having a schedule? How has that impacted you now having a schedule and a routine in place? Basically for me, it’s helped me prioritize my life, set everything in order as far as I know when I’m doing calls, I know when I’m reaching out to customers, I know when I’m doing estimates. I think before, everything was kind of, I would just roll with the day. Whatever the day brought, I would just try to make it work. And then at the end of the day, I’d look at my to-do list, and the most important things hadn’t been done. So having a set schedule has really freed me up and freed up my time. And when I get home, I can actually be present, because I’m still not thinking about the things I hadn’t got done. Amen. I just, it’s such a joy to watch you put all this together. How about a unique value proposition? I think people, again, they look at the business and they go, what? Folks, we have to figure out how we stand out in a cluttered marketplace. So when people look at my business, Elephant in the Room, you know, they look at the haircut business and they go, Clay, you’re not the only haircut guy in Tulsa. How have you been able to be successful? Okay, what we figured out it with elephant in the room is we’re gonna offer a high-end men’s grooming lounge experience a high-end men’s grooming lounge experience but that first haircuts a dollar so it’s a very high-end man-centric experience where people come into the shops they tour the shops they look around they go man this place is awesome guys we have guys that literally come in to get their haircut every week just they like the atmosphere they like the atmosphere, the overall environment. But we’re not the only people in Tulsa that cut hair. We have to have a unique value proposition. Oxifresh, we work with them, it’s the world’s greenest carpet cleaner, they have a unique value proposition. EO Fire has a unique value proposition. Let me get your thoughts on this unique value proposition. How important has it been for you to come up with a no-brainer that really moves the needle and knowing your unique value proposition? It’s been very helpful because one, it helps grab people’s attention. I think these days, you know, people have short attention spans, so they might have a lot of offers coming in front of them, but it has to be something that catches their attention and makes them stop to look at you and see what you’re offering. It’s just, again, I love what we’re seeing here because this is a real person who’s a real good guy and money is just a magnifier, folks. Money just makes you more of who you are. So if you’re a total jerk who’s a dysfunctional person that hates people, you’re going to be a guy with a lot of money who now hates people. I mean, it’s just going to magnify who you are. Branding, I know we’ve spent a lot of time optimizing the look of your website, optimizing the look of your print pieces. How has that impacted you, having all your print pieces, your website? Again, we’re never done. I mean, we’re never done with it, we’re always improving, but how has that helped you to have high quality print pieces, one sheets, websites, marketing materials? How has that impacted you? I mean, it’s helped us come across as, you know, a lot more professional. If you look at our website, it looks high class. I mean, we had a decent website before, but the one we have now just looks great. It’s attention grabbing, makes people wanna click on it and actually reach out to you. Now, again, folks, I’m telling you, if you go to thrivetimeshow.com and come to our workshop, your life is gonna be changed only if you’re willing to put in the work. And that is what today’s guest is doing. So yes, we’ve taught Brian these systems. Yes, we’re pushing Brian, but Brian is putting in the work. So if you’re out there today and you’re willing to put in the work, we want to work with you. But if not, we don’t. OK, so having the sales system we got now, we have one sheets, prewritten sales scripts, lead track as we have it. We know what it costs to get new customers, repeatable systems. This is a part where so many people get stuck. They don’t have any systems in place for anything. And for the sake of time we have on this, we’re going to kind of wrap today’s interview. So when you go to EITRLounge.com forward slash staff. This is obviously my business, so I can show you, but we have an entire built out system of all the checklists and all the processes and everything needed to scale. I would argue that’s kind of the phase where you’re in right now, is you’re systemizing everything. Talk to the listeners about the importance of getting everything out of your head and into a proven system. Yeah, I mean, that’s real crucial. I think whenever you start a business, you know, you’re the owner, you know how everything works, but if for some reason you weren’t there, no one knows how anything works. So having a system, somebody else can come in and pretty much just follow the steps and get the job done. So I guess my final question I have for you is if you were sitting right next to a guy at a conference, and he says to you, at our conference in June, and there’s some guy from Michigan or some guy from California sitting next to you, and they’re like, does the system really work? Could you, I’d love to get your thoughts. What would you say to anybody out there that’s thinking about becoming a client? I’m living it. I mean, it works. You just have to work it. It’s been proven by business owner after business owner, and all you have to do is just put in the work. Brian, I really do appreciate you for carving out time for me. Thank you for lowering your standards, for putting up with me today. And I’m really excited for you. I’m excited to be on a team with you and I hope you feel loved and appreciate. I know I’m probably one of the most busy, pragmatic people you’ll meet, but we are a hundred percent focused on helping you. And Carter says nothing but great things about you. So again, thank you for carving out time for us there. And on behalf of coach Carter, your coach and the rest of the team, we really do appreciate you. I appreciate you and thank you for everything you’re doing for me and my family. All right, brother, you take care. Bye-bye. All right, you too. Bye. My name is Tyler Hastings and this is my wife, Rachel, and our company is Delricht Research out of New Orleans. During our time working with Thrive, we’ve had numerous successes. When we first started, we were working with one physician, we had one research site, and we were seeing on average, you know, between 10 and 15 patients a week. Since working with Thrive in the last 18 months, we now have four research sites, we work with over five physicians, and on average we’re now seeing over 60 patients per week. Recently we’ve been the top enroller worldwide in seven studies, which is just incredible considering where we were, you know, two years ago, 18 months ago. Thrive really differs from the other conferences that we’ve been to and the other kind of programs that we’ve been through because they actually really practice what they preach and they implement the same systems and the processes that they teach you about and they give you real life examples that really work for them and show you with the training how to implement that yourself. For example, Tyler and I actually got the opportunity to come out to Tulsa and we were fortunate enough that the Thrive team took us out to some of the businesses that they own and we really got to see in real life, real time, some of the systems and processes and it was just incredible. A real life example of some of the businesses and the things that they’re implementing. Having a coach is important to us. They act as not only an accountability factor, but they’re someone we can talk to on a daily basis as we go through the problems of running a business that inevitably come up. They always understand what we’re going through and they’re always there to help us or guide us through the problems that we experience. working with Thrive has just been seeing our relationship grow. So at each step as our business grows, we know that they have something else to provide us with. They’ve got the resources, whether it be marketing, graphic design, website development, or even in accounting practices, maybe we need a new insurance policy. If they have someone they can connect us with, or they have the direct resource we need to speak with for any of the problems we face. If someone’s thinking about signing up for the coaching program, I would highly recommend that they call in for a free 30-minute coaching session and see exactly what the team can do for you. Just speak with someone, let them know what you are going through, and I think you will find that regardless of what you need, there is someone there that can help you. You know, about 25 years ago, our PR firm was running hot as hell and we had six of the top 20 musical artists in America on the billboard charts. No company even had two and here we are with six. So we had the most number of successful artists in the country by far, but I still wanted to sign another musical artist who wasn’t on the charts for a while, but I loved and respected greatly. I wanted to sign the great Ray Charles. Ray Charles. I decided that even though I had all these big stars, I was going to go after Ray Charles, and I called him. And I ultimately did sign them. I did sign them. But I’d like to ask you, listening to this right now, to try to guess. Just close your eyes and try to guess how many times I called Ray Charles before I signed them. Are you going to? All right. Let’s try to close our eyes. Close our eyes. Here we go. Now, we’ll do it multiple choice. Did I call on a 10 times? B 20 times C 30 times D 40 times or e more than 40 times Close your eyes Now write down your answer. Write it down. Don’t you cheat now. Write down your answer. I’m going to give you the correct answer in three seconds. One, two, three. Alright, here we go. The correct answer is… 46 times. I called Ray Charles’ office 46 times. You wanna hear something crazy? I didn’t even need Ray Charles. Here I had all the other big music stars. But, I think the story for some of you may, may, may, may have impact. When you think about all the tenacity required to go after your big dreams. I’m talking about little dreams, talking about big dreams. Anyway, I’m Michael Levine. JT, do you know what time it is? Um, 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Rosalim, baby! Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old, but I’ve never had the two-time Heisman Award winning Tim Tebow come present. And a lot of people have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. And off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now, the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Well, they’re going to have to come and find out because I don’t know. Well, I’m just saying, Tim Tebow is going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Also, this is the first Thrive Time Show event we’ve had where we’re going to have a man who has built a hundred million dollar net worth. Wow. Who’ll be presenting. Now we’ve had a couple of presenters that have had a billion dollar net worth in some like a real estate sort of things. Yeah. But this is the first time we’ve had a guy who’s built a service business and he’s built over a hundred million dollar net worth in the service business. It’s the yacht driving multi-state living guru of franchising. Peter Taunton will be in the house. This is the founder of Snap Fitness, the guy behind Nine Round Boxing. He’s gonna be here in Tulsa, Russel, Oklahoma June 27th and 28th. JT, why should everybody want to hear what Peter Taunton has to say? Oh, because he’s incredible. He’s just a fountain of knowledge. He is awesome. He has inspired me listening to him talk and not only that, he also has, he practices what he teaches, so he’s a real teacher, he’s not a fake teacher like business school teachers, so you gotta come learn from him. Also, let me tell you this folks, I don’t wanna get this wrong, because if I get it wrong, someone’s gonna say, you screwed that up, buddy. So Michael Levine, this is Michael Levine, he’s gonna be coming, and you say, who’s Michael Levine? I don’t wanna get this wrong. This is the PR consultant of choice for Michael Jackson, for Prince, for Nike, for Charlton Heston, for Nancy Kerrigan, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times best-selling authors he’s represented, including pretty much everybody you know who’s been a super celebrity. This is Michael Levine, a good friend of mine. He’s going to come and talk to you about personal branding and the mindset needed to be super successful. The lineup will continue to grow. We have hit Christian reporting artist Colton Dixon in the house. Now people say, Colton Dixon’s in the house? Yes, Colton Dixon’s in the house. So if you like top 40 Christian music, Colton Dixon’s gonna be in the house performing. The lineup will continue to grow each and every day. We’re gonna add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup, but I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? What do I do? How does it work? You just go to thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to Thrivetimeshow.com. Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, you just go to Thrivetimeshow.com. You click on the Business Conferences button, and you click on the Request Tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. You started out with a million dollars in the bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that, did not get an inheritance from parents or anything like that. I had to work for it and I’m super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s actually how I met you, met Peter Taunton, I met all these people. So if you’re out there today and you want to come to our workshop, again you just got to go to thrivetimeshow.com. You might say, well when’s it going to be? June 27th and 28th. You might say, well who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where is it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russell Oklahoma. I suppose it’s Tulsa, Russell. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russell, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show and Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now, for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office. And so it’s going to be packed. So when? June 27th and 28th. Who? You. You’re going to come. I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at Thrivetimeshow.com. And again, you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford. And we do have some select VIP tickets which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things. And those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop, over 20 hours of business training. We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical, it’s actionable, and it’s TiVo time right here in Tulsa, Russia. Get those tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s thrivetimeshow.com. Hello, I’m Michael Levine, and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California, where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies and I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California in the beautiful sunny weather of LA come to Tulsa. Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation. Really life changing. And I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine, I’ll see you in Tulsa. James, did I tell you my good friend John Lee Dumas is also joining us at the in-person, two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop. That Tim Tebow and that Michael Levine. Have I told you this? You have not told me that. He’s coming all the way from Puerto Rico. This is John Lee Dumas, the host of the chart-topping EOFire.com podcast. He’s absolutely a living legend. This guy started a podcast after wrapping up his service in the United States military and he started recording this podcast daily in his home, to the point where he started interviewing big time folks like Gary Vaynerchuk, like Tony Robbins, and he just kept interviewing bigger and bigger names, putting out shows day after day. And now he is the legendary host of the EO Fire podcast, and he’s traveling all the way from Puerto Rico to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend the in-person June 27th and 28th, primetime show, two-day interactive business workshop. Thrive Time Show 2-Day Interactive Business Workshop. If you’re out there today, folks, if you’ve ever wanted to grow a podcast, a broadcast, you want to improve your marketing, if you’ve ever wanted to improve your marketing, your branding, if you’ve ever wanted to increase your sales, you want to come to the 2-Day Interactive June 27th and 28th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop featuring Tim Tebow, Michael Levine, John Lee Dumas, and countless big-time, super successful entrepreneurs. It’s gonna be life changing. Get your tickets right now at thrivetimeshow.com. James, what website is that? Thrivetimeshow.com. James, one more time for the four enthusiasts. Thrivetimeshow.com. ♪ Sunshine, everything rides on tonight ♪ ♪ Even if I got three strikes, I’ma go for it ♪ ♪ This moment, we own it, eh, I’m not to be played with because it could get dangerous. See, these people I ride with this moment. We own it. Thrivetime Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops. Because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13 point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two day, 15 hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars with no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big, get rich quick, walk on hot coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses? Or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever. And we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person, two-day, interactive, Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news. The tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person, two-day interactive business workshop, all you gotta do is go to thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets, and if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the Academy, at King’s Point in New York, acta non verba, watch what a person does, not what they say. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvard Kiyosaki, The Rich Dad Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, but they’re completely different worlds. I have a special guest today. The definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. And so Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric Trump, but we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man, and there’s so many ways we could take this thing. But I thought, since you and Eric are close, Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who is my age, and I can say or cannot say? Well, I have to, first of all, I have to honor you, sir. I want to show you what I did to one of your books here. There’s a guy named Jeremy Thorn, who was my boss at the time. I was 19 years old, working at Faith Highway, I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV, and he said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? And I said, no. And my father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. So I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books, and I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner, to the investor, and I owe a lot of that to you. And I just wanted to take a moment to tell you, thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. And then I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. You know, more than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there, or bad influencers. Yeah. Anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much, and thanks for reading my books. That’s the greatest thrill for me today. Not a thrill, but recognition is when people, young men especially, come up and say, I read your book, changed my life, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy, at King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey. I’m originally from Tulsa, born and raised here. I went to a small private liberal arts college and got a degree in business and I didn’t learn anything like they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear workflows. I learned stuff that I’m not using using and I haven’t been using for the last nine years. So what they’re teaching here is actually way better than what I got at business school. And I went what was actually ranked as a very good business school. The linear workflow, the linear workflow for us in getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. We have workflows that are kind of all over the place. Having linear workflow and seeing that mapped out on multiple different boards is pretty awesome. That’s really helpful for me. The atmosphere here is awesome. I definitely just stared at the walls figuring out how to make my facility look like this place. This place rocks. It’s invigorating. The walls are super, it’s just very cool. The atmosphere is cool. The people are nice. It’s a pretty cool place to be. Very good learning atmosphere. I literally want to model it and steal everything that’s here at this facility and basically create it just on our business side. Once I saw what they were doing, I knew I had to get here at the conference. This is probably the best conference or seminar I’ve ever been to in over 30 years of business. You’re not bored. You’re awake and alive the whole time. It’s not pushy. They don’t try to sell you a bunch of things. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of business. Planning your time, breaking it all down, making time for the F6 in your life, and just really implementing it and sticking with the program. It’s really lively, they’re pretty friendly, helpful, and very welcoming. I attended a conference a couple months back, and it was really the best business conference I’ve ever attended. At the workshop I learned a lot about time management, really prioritizing what’s the most important. The biggest takeaways are you want to take a step-by-step approach to your business. Whether it’s marketing, what are those three marketing tools that you want to use, to human resources. Some of the most successful people and successful businesses in this town, their owners were here today because they wanted to know more from Clay and I found that to be kind of fascinating. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned is diligence. That businesses don’t change overnight. It takes time and effort and you’ve got to go through the ups and downs of getting it to where you want to go. He actually gives you the road map out. I was stuck, didn’t know what to do and he gave me the road map out step by step. We’ve set up systems in the business that make my life much easier, allow me some time freedom. Here you can ask any question you want, they guarantee it will be answered. This conference like motivates me and also give me a lot of knowledge and tools. It’s up to you to do it for you. I can see the marketing working. It’s just an approach that makes sense. Probably the most notable thing is just the income increase that we’ve had. Everyone’s super fun and super motivating. I’ve been here before, but I’m back again because it motivates me. Your competition’s going to come eventually or try to pick up these tag-nits. So you better, if you don’t, somebody else will. I’m Rachel with Tip Top Keynight, 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. See? It’s good. Nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing, and this is our old team. And by team, I mean 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, thank you, 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. If you decide to not attend the Thrive Time Workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. The atmosphere at Clay’s office is very lively. You can feel the energy as soon as you walk through the door. And it really got me and my team very excited. If you decide not to come, you’re missing out on an opportunity to grow your business, bottom line. Love the environment. I love the way that Clay presents and teaches. It’s a way that not only allows me to comprehend what’s going on, but he explains it in a way to where it just makes sense. The SEO optimization, branding, marketing. I’ve learned, marketing is key, marketing is everything. Making sure that you’re branded accurately and clearly. How to grow a business using Google reviews and then just how to optimize our name through our website also. Helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine optimization, helping us really rank high in Google. The biggest thing I needed to learn was how to build my foundation, how to systemize everything and optimize everything, build my SEO. How to become more organized, more efficient. How to make sure the business is really there to serve me, as opposed to me constantly being there for the business. New ways of advertising my business, as well as recruiting new employees. Group interviews, number one. Before we felt like we were held hostage by our employees. Group interviews has completely eliminated that because you’re able to really find the people that would really be the best fit. Hands-on, how to hire people, how to deal with human resources, a lot about marketing, and overall just how to structure the business, how it works for me, and also then how that can translate into working better for my clients. The most valuable thing I’ve learned here is time management. I like the one hour of doing your business is real critical if I’m going to grow and change. It’s probably really teaching you how to navigate through those things and not only find freedom, but find your purpose in your business and find the purposes for all those other people that directly affect your business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everyone. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real.