Business Podcast | Search Engine Optimization & Search Engine Domination 101 + The Specific Steps That You Need to Take Today to Dominate Search Engine Results + Celebrating 142% Growth of Nick Behselich’s SecurityGlassBlockWI.com

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrive Time Show! Good look as the father of five. That’s what I’m about. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them how it’s easy. And see up on your radio. And now three, two, one. Here we go. Starting from the bottom. Now we hit it. Starting from the bottom. And that’s how you do it. All right. We’re going to open our book to page 469. And just so we’re clear, just this is helpful. This next session, I think every session has a lot of value, but this session, I used to charge people to just go teach this session. So they would pay me $10,000, I go in, I teach this. So this page, 469, would be like a $10,000, one-hour session. This would be what you do. There’s a company called bruceclay.com, if Bruce is watching online. His company charges $8,000 a month, one-year agreement, so $96,000 a year to teach this chapter. And the reason why is because most people use the Internet, but they don’t know how it works. Make sense? So I’m going to teach you how the Internet works in terms of optimization. This should make you a lot of money. And I hope that there’ll be 1 to 10 people here, maybe 100% of people, maybe 2% of people. Hope somebody here will implement this, because it will help you. And I really want you to take notes here, if you can, on page 469. If you don’t have a book, look for an abandoned book, and then just sort of look around, and then take the book and take notes. Because it won’t be helpful if you don’t take some notes here, OK? That’s what I did. Nice. OK, so page 469. And this is search engine optimization, OK? So I’m going to bring up JT for a second, if JT is here or, okay, awesome. And then if you, JT, if you see Andrew Free at all, we’ll kind of find him too, okay? But I was, but we’ll bring you up here first, okay? So the way it works is, if you have, how many of you have a website? Okay. Now, how many of you know the English language? How many of you know another language beyond English? Like two maybe languages. Okay. Cuss words. Cuss words. So I want to make sure we’re having this conversation here. So in Spanish, there’s like a different word for everything. That’s true. It’s so weird. Whoa. Okay. So what happens is if you are… How many of you have been to Mexico before and you’re not Hispanic speaking out and you don’t speak Spanish? And what will happen is I find Americans, they like to just talk louder when they’re in a foreign country. So they’re like, do you know where the bathroom is? And you know Paco Jose, he’s going, no hablo ingles. And you’re like, do you know where the bathroom is? So we use bigger motions that still mean nothing. And I find that’s how a lot of people do search engine optimization. They go, I need my website to generate more leads. I get that, but you just got to learn the language so we can do it. We are going to open our book here to page 469. Step one, you got to host your website. Just circle anything on here that you are not doing. You have got to host your website on a reliable hosting service. Aaron, I recommend everybody here, you host your website on GoDaddy or a service you can host that you can count on. I’m not saying I agree with the politics or don’t. I’m just saying it’s super important your website is consistent. Because if someone goes to your site and it’s down, you click it, it doesn’t work. Google will de-index or unrank your site. So it would be like an employee at the workplace. If they’re supposed to be here at Thursday at 7 a.m. for their shift and they don’t show up, they just get downgraded in my mind as not dependable. I hope that makes sense, okay? And Aaron, you work with homebuilders. How often does a homebuilder say, you know, but I got my cousin, I got my neighbor, somebody who hosts it who’s not GoDaddy? Oh, probably 70% of the time they’ve got a buddy or a hookup that, you know, well I don’t really have to pay very much for it because it’s my buddy. Okay. And it’s like, yeah, but then, you know, it’s like you have a dial-up connection when you go to their website, and it takes four minutes to load one photo. Now, the second note here, I wanna go to JT for this. You gotta host your website on the fastest package. Now, JT, you, it’s been interesting because you’ve worked for one of my clients, Square Basketball, and now you work here, and you own your own business, and so it’s kind of fun watching that process. But why do you have to have your website hosted on what’s called the GoDaddy Grow Package. It’s like 85 bucks a month. Why do you have to have it on fast hosting? Why does it have to load fast? Because people, if you don’t join, they’ll just click off. They’ll just get right off if it doesn’t load. If it doesn’t load, they’ll just get off because they have better things to do. They don’t have the attention span or patience. I did not know that Dr. Zellner was going to be here, so it was kind of fun for me. But look, if your dad visited and you didn’t expect it. It’s kind of fun. But for Z, he will often say to someone to their face, which I’ve learned to love, he’ll say, I think you overestimate my interest in the words you’re saying. And I’m like, that’s so good. And maybe with the backdrop of the mansions and all this stuff, maybe you get away with that or maybe, but he’ll say it and he’ll kind of smile because he wants you to get to the point. And so does the website visitor. They just want it to load. They’re not going to wait for it to load a long time. So you move on to the third variable and Steve, I want to get your thoughts on this. You’ve got to host your website on WordPress. Now, you can read, I put it in the book, you can read it. Matt Mullenweg is the man who invented WordPress. You can get into how that works and why it works. But at the end of the day, Google ranks sites higher that are hosted on WordPress. Do you care a lot about that, Steve, or do you just, how do you process that when someone tells you for your site to rank higher you need to be on WordPress? Cool, let’s put it on WordPress. But there are people, I have no problem with it, they’ll go, you know, but my cousin is a custom PHP programmer who lives in Venezuela to get off the grid if you know what I mean. Now he works in the basement if you know what I mean. And what we are doing is we are building a shield that allows us to be on the internet anonymously so that they can’t track us. And I think I maybe agree with a lot of what you said and I worry about it in the midterm, but short term, your site won’t rank. I mean, Aaron, do you see this a lot? Do you see any little pushback where people are like, I just don’t wanna. Yeah, usually it’s kind of a weird thing because people will have a strong opinion about something that they don’t even understand, but they had somebody that they trusted, aka somebody that they paid $40,000 to create a website for them, that told them it needed to be hosted this way, it needed to be on this platform, whatever it might be, and because of the amount of money they paid, which this was actually me when I met you, we had paid like $45,000 to redo our website. I do remember that. And we had all of these really high-tech gadgets on it, like this interactive floor plan thing where you could change your floor plan on the website and add bells and whistles. Can we log in to Lucky Orange real quick back to Shaw? And Rochelle, I want you to look at this. This is important for you to see this, OK? Because you’re in the medical space. Anybody here in the medical space? Anybody here in the pastoral space? Anybody here? Good, okay. This is really important though. So when you log on to Lucky Orange, it will show you where people click, and I’m just trying to help you. 90 some percent of visitors to a website don’t read the words on the site. True. So what you have a problem with is like, as an example, if you open your Bible, who has a Bible with you? Oh, right here in my pocket. Who does? Okay, so if you open your Bible to Revelation 9 11 or Revelation chapter 2 13 and you open it up today and you just look at it, it tells you where Satan lives. It’s in the Bible, Revelation 9 11 and Revelation 2 13. It tells you where the former temple of Apollo was, where Antipas was martyred, and I think that’s an interesting thing because that’s where Geneva is, but we could go to Geneva and go, that’s why the World Economic Forum, that’s why the United Nations, that’s why CERN, that’s why they’re all in Geneva. We could go there. That’s a separate conference. I’m just saying, a lot of times people, I tell them these things and they’ll go, I don’t believe you. And I’ll tell them, look it up in the Bible, and they’ll still go, I don’t believe you. And you’ll tell them where to look it up, I don’t believe you. And it’s because people are kind of post-reading, post-researching. I don’t know what people are doing now, but people a lot of times don’t read on the website. So what happens is doctors, Rochelle this will not be you, but other people, they write these really really really thoughtful blogs that they take years on and they publish their thesis and their theories and their whatever and they think that that’s gonna get them more leads. But it doesn’t Steve, because when you’re looking for a doctor and you’re in Miami what are you gonna type in? Miami doctor. And whoever comes up top you’re gonna… I’m gonna call them. Right and you’re probably not gonna read the blog. No. But a lot of people get hung up on this. So we’re in your lucky orange, I think we’re in your lucky orange here. Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah, and from the lucky orange, I immediately found out the interactive floor plans that I paid $4,500 for. Not a single person went to them ever. Right. And we had this conversation, and this was pre-Christ for me, I’ve been working, getting better, but I just do facts, and I’m just telling you this is good and bad. So I’m not, I have a real hard time with like debates. Who here likes debates? I don’t like debates. I just want to go, okay, you feel this way, you feel that way, can we be done talking now? Because I just, I don’t want to debate. But some people like debates, it’s okay. I just, I’m more about facts. So when I meet with my clients, I’m like, Aaron, no one is clicking on the thing. Yeah, you told me that. And the 40 grand you spent on it was a waste? Complete waste. Kind of like, you know, I don’t know, kind of like tracking the migration patterns of squirrels in my forest? It’s just sort of a waste of time. It’s possible, I guess. Very similar. And we would go through it, but there was an investment he’d already spent of time and money and therefore there was an emotional bias to want to stay loyal to it. Does that make sense to you? Yep. You ever met a guy who’s not yet married and you know he shouldn’t get married, but he’s going to do it anyway and he asks you, what do you think about her? Have you seen that one? Oh boy. That’s always a rough gig. Yeah. What do you think about her? I’ve lost a few friends over that. I think she’s terrible. Okay, we continue. Go ahead and get married. Okay. So we move on. The next thing on page four, you have to have this. You have to have a mobile-friendly website. A lot of people don’t have a mobile-friendly website. If you want to check if your website’s mobile-friendly, you can just type in Google mobile test. And by the way, don’t freak out if your website’s not mobile friendly today because every single month, Google does small updates. And that’s why for all of our clients, we use a tool called SEMrush. And M-O-Z.com, you can pay for the service. And it just lets me know all the updates we need to make for every site. And every site we work with every month, there’s little updates that need to be made because how many of you know there’s always a new update on your phone? How many of you have seen your phone and it’s like, do you want to download the new update? Who got the Apple update where it changed the way the screen looks now? Who got that one? I didn’t want that, I’m kind of irritated. But they didn’t ask me, they just did it. They just do it. And so with your computer, with your website, I mean, they’re going to do that and then on the mobile devices and now your website has to update too. And so if you ever stop updating your website, it will de-rank over time. Next, you have to have HTTPS encryption. I want to ask you this, JT. Do you really care a lot about hypertext transfer protocol? Do you like sit there and go, when I tell you, hey, we need to have an HTTPS encryption on the website, do you ever think to yourself, what does hypertext transfer protocol security mean? Not until just now. Yeah. I’ve never thought about that. But there are people, and I would argue that entrepreneurs, I encourage you to write this down, this is big, entrepreneurs are usually thinkers, which is really good. But sometimes it gets in the way of doing anything. So I find that the enemy of done is perfect. So I just think the enemy of done is perfect. So I just encourage you, if you don’t maybe quite understand, if you’re a client of mine, just know that my services are month to month, and my goal, what I aspire to achieve with most of my clients is to have a non-equity, I call it a growth partnership. Basically, I get a small percentage of the growth. Hypothetically, in those situations, I don’t make any money unless you grow. My bias is to make money for you and for me. Therefore, I’m going to tell you things that will grow your business because it benefits me and you. We move on. Next, you’ve got to have Yoast on your website. Yoast, Y-O-A-S-T. Now Yoast is a search engine optimization tool that tells you if you’re doing it properly. Steve, Yoast, it tells you if your title tag is too long, if your meta description is too long, if your keyword is too long. And do you really care about the inner workings of that? Do you care? Not at all. Oh, I do care about being ranked in Google, though. Right, so I’m gonna just show you. If you type in Tulsa Men’s Haircuts, Tulsa Men’s Haircuts, we’ll pull it up here. The title is the word, I’ll point to you. The title, scroll down real quick here. Okay, right there, the top, elephant in the room, vertical bar, Tulsa men’s haircuts. That’s our title. Got it? And then the description, that’s the words underneath it right there. And the keyword is the keyword I’m trying to optimize for. And if you wanna ever see someone’s meta description, just go to their website, so go to the Elf in the Room, and then right-click on the website and click View Source, and you can see the source code. You can see, yeah, and that’s how you would… That’s my favorite part. Yeah, that’s good. I actually review that every week in my meeting with Clay. It’s a beautiful thing. We continue. Source code. Now, next, you have to have a thousand words of content per page. Now, this is where I lose a lot of people, page 473. I lose a lot of people here. I would say a lot, like most of my clients, just they do not want to do this. Now for me, I’m not, again, I just try to be very blunt, and I know this is somewhat a polarizing idea. I, as a general rule, would rather write search engine content than talk to people. Usually, not all people, but most. Because I like drivers who get stuff done, so whenever I meet with like Steve, I don’t mind that conversation, because he does stuff. But if it gets into the emotional zone, I don’t have that part of my brain called the amygdala. It’s gone. And so I can’t do it. So I just can’t. I don’t know what it is. So if it’s like, I want to write a thousand words, but I have anxiety. I’m always like, well, you know, if you shut the hell up and write, maybe the anxiety will go away. I don’t know. I have an idea. How about anxiety? It could be in a weak ass. You know, but it’s like, it’s like, that’s how my mind works. I’m not saying it’s how it should work. I’m just saying is like I, for me, so anybody here by show of hands, you can sit down and write no big deal, no problem. Not saying it makes you a great person or a bad person. How many of you though writing, it’s more like, ah, it’s kind of tough. It’s kind of challenging. Okay, so you have to figure out either are you gonna write it or are you gonna have my team or somebody else write it? I’m trying to tell you a fair market value so you can know what to look for if you’re hunting. For Bruce Clay, that’s bruceclay.com. I’ve hired him in the past. We’re very happy with the services. What he does is it’s $8,000 a month for a 12-month contract, $96,000 a year minimum, and then per page it’s $300 minimum per page. So you’re paying him $300 to write 1,000 words. So that’s a real thing and people do it. Aaron, if you were going to write 1,000 words, how long would it take you to do it, 1,000 words? 1,000 words takes me about 10 minutes because I record it and then I transcribe it and then it turns into a thousand words. And for me, if I’m gonna write like a thousand words, like so if you type in Tulsa firewood, I want to come up top and Google for Tulsa firewood. So I wrote this content, Tulsa firewood. If you scroll down, keep going back, back, firewood, scrolling up, feeling the flow, it’ll be firewood co, I believe, you’ll see it. Let’s see, there it is. Yeah, yeah. Okay, this is wood you can trust, folks. Okay, here we go. All right, so click it. And then let’s read, Steve, I want you to read, please, if you can. I wrote these words. I feel very proud of these words. Go for it, Steve. At Tulsa Firewood Co., we believe in providing you the very best selection of premium 50% off Tulsa quality firewood. In fact, we offer a wide variety of Tulsa firewood options including pinion wood, that’s Clay’s favorite, mesquite wood, applewood, and other assorted firewood. We specialize in providing citizens of Tulsa with premium wood that can be effectively used for barbecuing or for doing other types of… Okay, we’re all getting dumber but I wrote it. Okay, so let’s go back to the top and now we’re gonna scroll on the firewood pro tips. This is my favorite section of the website. This is why I come up top in Google and I… if you read them please and Sean, if you kind of cue up some inspirational music as Steve reads my firewood tips. These are good. Okay. And then, Steve, if you can read a tip, and then maybe I’ll have JT read a couple tips. Go for it, Steve. Sean, you got the music? You ready to go? You want me to read this part? Yeah, go for it. This is good stuff. This is life tips. At Polk Firewood Co., we want your overall firewood experience to be excellent, and therefore we invest the time needed to teach you how to properly stack your firewood. Although the idea of stacking wood might seem to be an easy process, there are many things you might want to consider before you begin stacking the bulk of firewood that you just purchased from us for 50% off. If your wood somehow becomes wet, first and foremost, you want to make sure that you stack your wood in a location that will receive as much direct sunlight as possible. This will keep your wood dry and ready to burn so that the wood will dry out. If you are stacking dry wood, you want to keep the Tulsa firewood away. I don’t think you appreciate the clarity and the precision of these words. I’m going to go back to JT. He has a reverence for the words. JT, read it please. away from getting any direct contact to the dirt, the soil and the earth. If you set your wood on the soil, it will begin to actually absorb the moisture, and it can even start to mold. It’s not so inappropriate. It’s not good to have moldy wood on your hands. If you must set your wood on the earth, we recommend that you put a cart down or something that will keep your wood in the dirt, guys. With the soil, you’re preventing your wood from becoming moldy. Scroll down, Steve, back to you. Steve, please outread him. What? What? What about James Earl Jones, please? When you begin the process of actually stacking your wood, you want to make sure that you have the right mindset to what’s set up. You want to use at least two stickers, which could be from something as easy as a 2×4 number or anything that you can find that will do a good foundation for you to stack your tolls of firewood on. As you chill, simply begin to stack your tolls of firewood. Pause, real quick, now pause. I get, and James works on my phone, I probably get four to eight people, I don’t know, a day, requesting firewood because of that. I don’t have any firewood, that’s the problem. But I’m top of Google. Not anywhere else. We’re still there. But the thing of like, it’s being top in Google is not hard, it just requires doing the work. And for me, I think it’s hilarious. And no one ever reads it, but occasionally someone will call and go, who wrote that content? I don’t know if that, I don’t know. But I mean, how many of you have a website for your business? And whether you’re a church or a home building company or a haircut place, the value of being top in Google versus not being top, it’s so important that you come up top in the search results. Can I bring up the dirty trick that you played on me about this, about the restaurant? Well, first off, before you tell the story, Aaron is a foodie, and he’s a guy who is classy, and I identify as being assy. So if my wife is like, where do you want to go out to eat? I’m always like, Burger King? And she’s like, honey, that’s kind of a deep state company. I’m like, okay, fair. What about five guys? And she’s like, I want to go out to eat at a restaurant. I’m like, Chipotle. That’s about as fancy as I get. This guy, Aaron, he and his wife go to restaurants where it’s dimly lit and the food’s aged meat and there’s a crummer. Who knows what a crummer is? Who does not know what a crummer is? It’s the homeboy that walks up to you and goes, excuse me, sir, would you like me to crum and they run around and they crum and they memorize your order. They never write anything down, which makes me want to slap them. They’re all like, sir, what would you like to order tonight? And they memorize your order because they don’t write it down. And there’s no prices on the menu. And if you ask, they’re like, I don’t. So are you in the right place? You got to dress up or you feel bad about yourself. OK, so go for it. So then one night I found out that this new restaurant that I had never heard of called Society, which I love, opened it, which Clay liked. So I’m going to check it out. It’s phenomenal, top grade. And I came back, and it was literally the worst experience ever of eating food ever in my life that I’ve ever had. Because he has expectations. So Clay was in the middle of explaining to me how search engine optimization worked. And he’s like, I’ll show you. And I’m like, what do you mean you’re going to show me? And he’s like, just in the next couple of days, maybe type in to Google, Aaron Antus loves society burgers and see what happens. So now I come up top in Google for Aaron Antis loving Society Burgers because Clay just wanted to show me that he could make it come up number one in Google for the restaurant that I least like on this planet. And then Dr. Z and I, Steve was present when this happened. I think Stairs you were too, but there was a phase in my life where I watched every single Patriots game, every single preseason game, every single podcast. And Dr. Z one day, we were off air, and he said, I think that you don’t have what it takes to come up top in Google for the phrase Bill Belichick. And I go, are you challenging me to a duel about Bill Belichick? And he’s like, I don’t think you have what it takes. So what we did is, because we were doing, at the time, we still do, I probably do 10 business shows a week. So I began optimizing for Bill Belichick’s number one fan. So every time I would do the show, I would use the word Bill Belichick, because I transcribe it, even if it didn’t make sense. So Steve, we’ll do kind of a role play of how I do the show, okay? Here we go. Ready? Ready. All right, welcome to the Thrive Time Show. I’m going to say, yes, yes, yes, and yes. Welcome to the Thrive Time Show on your podcast and radio. Today we’re talking about how to grow your business like Bill Belichick, because I am Bill Belichick’s number one fan. Steve, as a mortgage consultant and as a potential Bill Belichick number one fan, what are your thoughts on marketing? And I would just weave in the phrase Bill Belichick’s number one fan. And then Z would go, that’s a great question. Speaking of Bill Belichick’s number one fan, and we would do this. Well, I ended up coming up top and Google for Bill Belichick’s number one fan. And the Patriots sent me a cease and desist letter because apparently this is like an official title that has to be awarded. And so, and Doug, you know this because you’ve dealt with me in the legal thing. I told my wife, I’m like, I’m not giving up. I have to be the number one fan. And they were wanting to make me stop. And so I got a chance to talk to the chief legal counsel for the New England Patriots. And she was like, Mr. Clark, you have to take it down or face further litigation or whatever. And I was like, it is worth it to me because I am and nothing can stop it and she was like and he actually is bill Belichick’s number one fan Yeah, so it started getting the kind of weird cuz I wouldn’t I wouldn’t stop, you know And then I said can I meet bill Belichick? You probably know him, right? She’s like no you do not get a chance to meet bill Belichick And so anyway, I did not relent and they finally just dropped it But there I am number one in Google and I got asked by the Patriots to be on their podcast They work today on today the Patriot podcast or interview bill Belichick’s number one fan. And so I got on all these shows. I worked my way pretty far into the organization before the attorney called me. If you want to work your way and bring a ladder and just show up on a job site, people will let you in. Yeah. It’s a pro tip. It’s the ladder. You bring a ladder. And if you have a podcast, you come up top. People assume you’re top. So hopefully that’s helpful for somebody. Okay, so we’re moving on to the next pro tip here. So we go up. This is page 474. I want to go to Clay Stairs with this here, page 474. You got to make sure that you have an XML sitemap and an HTML sitemap that is search engine compliant. Now, the reason why we do that for our clients as part of what we charge, and just to be very clear so everyone knows how I charge, how I don’t charge, so we’re clear. I charge $1,700 a month, 1,700 per month for my clients, and then most of my clients turn into what I would call a non-equity partnership. That means I have no equity, but I make a small percentage of the growth and that’s what I like and that’s why my clients are with me for six years, seven years, whatever. That’s the whole thing. Stairs, why do most of our clients prefer for us to optimize all this stuff as part of that consulting as opposed to them doing it themselves? Once again, if you’re a roofer or if you’re an attorney or if you’re a doctor or some type of business, this writing content is not in your wheelhouse. And if you have the cash, it is not really worth your time to spend doing this stuff. Let somebody else do it. Now, if you don’t have the cash to do it, like when I first started out, I didn’t have the cash for that. So I ended up spending a lot of time doing podcasts and just using, just like Clay was saying, and Aaron was saying, talking for 10 minutes and transcribing, talking for 10 minutes and transcribing, and kicking out all of those pages. So, I’ve got a lot of pages on my website that I did write until I was able to grow the business to the point where I had cash to then have Clay’s team do that. Now, Steve, at a point when Steve first started, when you first hired us, you had just lost your job, and so you didn’t actually have a business. Or you just started it. And so I told Steve, to be top of Google, you need about, I don’t remember, like 1,000 articles. Yeah, these are all the articles on my page here that Sean’s scrolling through. And so what Steve would do is Steve would actually go through the process of, every morning, he would show up at the office around 4 AM, 5 AM. And he would go in the studio and record a podcast with a guy named Tyler. And Tyler. We called it the Steven Tyler show and I don’t think And I don’t think Tyler had ever been awake at 5 no and so the shows were pretty rough I want to be like Tyler in the face every day so Steve like we’re on the Steven Tyler show talking about toss the mortgages and Tyler be And then I’m like if you fucking yawn one Official review punch you in the… There it is. Oh my God. Boop, boop. It brings back bad memories, but I just want to kick it in the gonads. Fifth official review. Wake up. But anyway, that’s how Steve got top in Google for Tulsa Mortgages, and that’s how we came up top. So you can write it yourself, you can have us do it, but that’s just something we need to know. And I’m going to answer any questions that you guys have. I’m just firing through this. You go to page 477. You’ve got to have social proof. Now, as we’re doing this, somebody is going to start the process of search engine optimization, and then you’re going to have a member of your staff who’s going to go read an article on your page and say, the articles on our page don’t make any sense. Aaron, what percentage of people, according to Lucky Orange, or just according to talking to your customers, ever read your articles? There’s like a one one-hundredth of one percent that does, but that’s about it. And when you scroll down, you’ll just see that when you get down to the articles, you’ll see that nobody is really down there. So writing your own articles, no light spot, writing your own articles would be like me going into the forest to meet and greet the squirrels and to make sure they’re behaving in a orderly fashion. It makes no sense. You know, so we had a guy at a conference a few months ago, he came to us, he said, Clay, you know, back there in your back of the property, you got this like old tractor thing, and I don’t think it’s very becoming of the business for you to have it back there. And I said, well, then if you would like to go remove it, you can. And he’s like, but what do you mean? Just because you went back to the back of my property during lunch break and went into the woods and found a tractor. A, that’s exciting. You found that. B, what are you doing back there? C, I’m not moving it. You know what I mean? So you gotta kinda have that perspective with the business. We’re trying to grow that business. We’re not trying to write the most complete article. This goes back to what I said earlier about, you know, marijuana being legal in Oklahoma. That’s what he was doing back there. True. He was smoking some weed. Now page 477, you gotta have social proof. Now a social proof are testimonials. It’s so important. Now for JT, for one of the brands we’re working with right now, what we’re doing, and I’m gonna pull it up, I think Paul Sullins is here. Paul, are you here? Paul, can I bring up Paul real quick? So Paul does… Paul! There’s Paul! Woo! Hello, Paul! Now, Paul built this hut here, okay? And so Randy built the pergola here, so a lot of people ask me, well, who built the pergola? I say, give Randy a call. People ask me, who built the hut? Who did the waterfall? So Paul does the waterfall and the hut and all that kind of stuff. But a lot of people, when they hire you, Paul, to do like a big outdoor landscaping project, before they hire you, what do they want to see? Testimonials and pictures. Testimonials and pictures. And so you have a kiosk at the mall. Let’s type in outside ink irrigation Tulsa percent. So you have a kiosk at the mall, and in the mall, people can go and see examples of your work. And why do you show people examples of your work? Why is that helpful for someone to see examples of your work at the mall? A lot of people actually like to see what we do. Pictures tell a thousand words. You can tell them stuff all the time, but if they actually can see it, tangible, see it and talk to real people, then they create their own vision of what they want. Now, with Randy, you’ve won the award for best, I don’t want to exaggerate or get it wrong, but it’s like at the trade shows, you win the best trade show booth, pretty much best in show every year. And Randy will have a trade show booth that looks like a permanent structure. Like, I mean, it’s incredible, this stuff. I mean, Randy, if you can come up here just for a second, I’m gonna have you and Paul share a mic just for a second here. So Randy puts, I mean, he’ll go to the trade shows. Who here goes to trade shows as part of your business? Okay, so Randy sets up a huge, awesome booth. And what kind of energy do you put into your booth when you go to the trade shows? Well, everybody has high energy. You have to greet them really quickly. We put about probably $60,000 into every booth we do. I think you pulled up one here. So that one of your booths? Yeah, so that’s like set up usually about a 40 by 20. And we build all of that and tear it down three days later. But when he sets that booth up there, hot mic, when he’s when he sets up that booth there it’s absolutely important that he asks people to go out to hey if you do a tour check it out leave a review if you leave a review you have a chance to win a thing. Why is that an important move Randy to gather reviews from people that have actually seen your work in the flesh. Well, it helps for stuff like this because people don’t really know you when they come across you. And nowadays, the reviews are so important. They just wanna see reviews from like just actual people that are on raw videos. Does that make any sense to everybody out there? So if you’re saying, I don’t know how to get reviews, I don’t know how to do this. It’s so important you have social proof. Now, let’s go to page 478. Okay, so Randy, logo, on your website, PMH, you got a logo. Let’s look at your logo for a second. We’ll analyze the deeper meaning of your logo. Perfect my home. And your logo, I mean, you’ve had the brand for a long time. You’ve developed it and refined it. Are you happy with it now? Or what are your thoughts on your logo now? I’m very happy with it, yeah. But this is maybe the third iteration, 10th iteration, second, what do you think? Yeah, it’s the third. We had to change it due to a copyright, a trademark infringement. But yeah, I’m really happy with it. Yeah, but so the logo, if you’re out there today and you’re from Sacramento and you’re a bookkeeper, what you want to do is get the logo that you think is a good one and then just do it, but then over time, iterate. Anybody here do painting, carving, painting, some of art? You know, iterations. You know, people I know who write music, they’ll usually have a version they’ll go with, and then they’ll refine it, and then they’ll finally get it how they want it to be, usually, before it hits the album. Does that make sense? So just don’t not, don’t get stuck. Get it done. Okay, next we’re moving on here. This is page 479. Create original content. I’m going to pass the mic here to Randy, and then I’ll go to Paul. Randy, do you like writing tons of words about pools. I despise it. I don’t like it at all. OK, Paul, do you like writing articles about waterfalls? No, no, but heck no. OK, Aaron, do you like writing articles about housing? No, not at all. Have you ever had a client that’s bought a house from you who’s told you they read that article, they were very inspired by it and therefore they bought it? Not a single time. OK, so you want to go to you. I want you to go to Clay Steers first. Clay Steers, do you ever have someone who said, I watched the video testimonial and that’s what compelled me? Has that ever happened to you? Oh, completely. Yeah. Happens all the time. Steve, you ever had to have more someone said they watched the video reviews? No one’s actually given me one. We’re not good enough yet. Yes. I’m being sarcastic. Yeah. Yeah. We make them. We go to closing and we put them on the spot. And Steve, you get a review at every closing. Yeah. I mean, if we can, some people are a little camera shy, but we just figured it out. You just film it without their consent and just put it up there? Yeah. I’m just kidding. Ask for forgiveness. Okay, no, but it’s important you gather those. Okay? Now we move on here. We go to page 481. You want to have a 60-second compelling commercial on your website. Okay? 60-second compelling commercial on your website. All right? Go to page 482. You have to create a top of the website call to action. This is very big. I’ll go to Randy on this. Randy, you look at Lucky Orange on your site all the time. Every day. And where is the hot button right now? Where is the most action going? So, Contact Us is really hot. Financing is usually right there with the Contact Us. And, Sean, let’s pull up Aaron Antus’ Shaw Homes real quick here. Aaron, let’s look at that. Where are you getting all that traffic? Where are people clicking? Yeah, people want to go to, obviously, the Contact Us, which is that upper right there. And then they wanna see our move-in ready homes and the floor plans we build. That is what they wanna see. Okay, now we go to page 483. You have to create a no-brainer. Now my wife worked for Dr. Zellner when he rolled out that special, the $1. And how many people do you think that he asked for approval? Just getting a little sneak peek into him for a second. How many people do you think he asked about the no-brainer before he did it? Zero. Yeah, I know true story. My wife was weird Do we were dating and we weren’t married so we’re dating and her roommate used to think that I liked her So I’m dating my wife, but my wife’s roommate thought that I liked her kind of a lot, huh? Never mind stop So so we’re so we’re dating in college and my wife’s roommate thinks that I like her and they both had a job at the same business. So my wife worked there, so did my wife’s roommate. I would take them both to work, you know. And so we’re driving home one day and my wife’s roommate at the time and my wife, they were both commenting on like, the phone is so crazy. It is ringing all the time, all the time. And I got a chance to hear some of the coworkers, you know, who all work together. And some of them, what kind of reaction do you think that some of them had, Steve, to the idea that the phone rang all the time. It’s stupid. I can’t get like, I have to answer the phone all the time. It’s dumb. So of all the people I met who were working there with my wife, I would pick my wife up and take her home. But then I would also pick up some of her friends or I got a chance to meet some of the coworkers and they were all like, the phone rings all the time. We went to Magoo’s. Who knows about Magoo’s? It’s a billiard hall. Oh yeah. And Z, if you won a sales award, he would take you to Magoo’s. So the way it would work, if you worked at Dr. Z’s, he has kind of a party culture. So he’ll take all the employees to Magoo’s for a billiard tournament and then whoever wins the tournament wins like five grand. So that way everybody goes. And so all these employees go or he’ll take everyone bowling and whoever wins the bowling gets two grand. So it’s like it becomes a serious party competitive culture. That’s what Z likes to do. And so we’re going to Magoo’s and I’m talking to the staff and I’m thinking, this is awesome, I’m trying to learn. And I’m like, so you work for Dr. Z? Yeah, how’s it going? The phone rings all the time, it’s ridiculous. It’s so frustrating. So it rings all the time. Yeah, what’s your job? My job is to front desk to answer the phone. It’s frustrating. I’m going, so if the phone didn’t ring, your job wouldn’t be needed, right? Exactly, it’s like it’s so hard to get anything done. The phone rings all the time. It’s always customers wanting things, patients wanting to schedule an appointment, people trying to buy stuff. I’m thinking, well what do you think the purpose of the business is? These are, how many of you know what I’m talking about? You’re like, it’s so crazy. Well then there was a guy who I know very well, I’ll speak very generally, but this guy was mad. One of the doctors, he’s like, it is shady that we’re telling people it’s a dollar for one eye. It’s shady. Now, where do you think this guy made his income from? The optometrist to work for Dr. Z? From the LASIK deal, but he thought it was shady. And all I’m saying is no matter what no brainer you come up with, it has to be compelling. I’m not saying it has to be a $1 thing, but you have to make it compelling. So if people go to your church’s website, to your home building website, to your outdoor living website, to your landscaping website, you have to have a no-brainer that is so compelling that people at least will fill it out out of curiosity. So Randy, I’m going to go to you, then I’ll go back to Aaron here. So Randy, with your business, I believe that the financing thing, you’ve worked very hard to establish financing partners. I believe that is something that you offer that’s powerful. Yeah, because we have 0% options and we have long-term options. We have no, so like our pool loans, there’s no lien attached to your house on that loan. And you’ve worked very hard to build those relationships. Oh yeah, yeah, a lot of work. Now, and then Aaron, you have a interest rate buy-down you’ve worked on with Steve, is that a thing? Yeah, yeah. We basically, because interest rates are high on homes right now, so you might be at like seven and three quarters percent, which is, you know, it was just 3%, not too long ago, about a year ago. So that’s the biggest objection to somebody buying a home right now, is that payment is really high. So we’re buying rates down, and we’re getting into the like mid fives right now. Now Paul, for people that want to meet with you about building a waterfall or doing some work in the back of their house, does offering a free first appointment, is that a big thing for people to have you come out there and look at it? It is. It’s actually kind of surprising how many people are going, you mean you’ll come out here for free? Now, how I met Paul was I wanted to put enough pine trees around my property that I could pee and no one could see me. Remember that? That was our conversation. He goes, I’m talking to come in the driveway and I don’t want to see another human because that’s all I deal with all day. Yeah, so I talked to my friend Braxton who worked for Church on the Move and I said, Braxton, do you know anybody, because who plants the trees at Church on the Move? Who’s the guy? He goes, oh that’s Paul. And so I called Paul and I’m like, Paul, I just want to plant pine trees everywhere possible. So I’m not going to do this, but if I wanted to go streaking, I want to be able to do it freely and have only my wife and kids scared. And so, but mom, dad’s naked in the backyard again. I mean, of all of the people I called, I got called to get multiple bids and quotes and stuff. And all the people that I called wanted to charge me for the initial consult. Steve, you’ve dealt with contractors. Why would you not want to pay $250 for initial consult? I don’t even know if you’re an idiot or not yet. So I’m like, why would I pay you to come be? Stairs, have you ever dealt with a shady contractor or am I the only one? No, we definitely have. We did a big home remodel in our previous home and it ended up just being a nightmare. Who’s dealt with that again? How many of you dealt with a shady lawyer or a shady accountant? Let me walk you through shady accountant 101. This is my accountant I had back in the day. I’ll speak in general terms so as to not get sued. Here we go. The accountant says to me, Clay, I really believe in your business. I’m all in. I consider what I do to be more of a coaching service than accounting. This is not someone that anybody here has ever met. This is years ago. And I said, so you’re telling me you’re like a coach. His name is Bruce. He says, I am a coach. I’m not an accountant. View me as a coach, not an accountant. So if you need anything for me call me because you know me I mean you’re already paying me two thousand bucks a month so call me if you ever need something so Paul if you heard that what does that sound like to you if you just met the guy you know you’re 25 years old you’re paying two grand a month he says call me if you ever need something what does that feel like to you what does that sound like to you sounds a little shady does it to you yeah so you’re more cynical than I was. I was like a young, like how many people, like you’re just like naively trusting people. That was me. I was out there like, oh. So I’m calling the guy all the time. I’m like, hey, Bruce, what’s up? Hey, real quick, I just hired my 40th DJ. What should I do? And he’s like, oh, you do this too. Hey, I’m looking to onboard my new guy. What’s my hiring document? Oh, you do this. And I’m calling and it’s growing, it’s going great. Now, Steve, I get an email, the email of death at the end of my first quarter. And it’s all of the conversations I’ve had. And he rounds it to like each call is a one hour call minimum. And they’re 300 bucks per interaction. But now again, he calls me too, like, how are you? I’m fine, how are you? So you have any issues with hiring? Well, yeah, well, I got you. So I get like a $20,000 bill. Now, Steve, have you ever seen accountants and or lawyers that do the mystery billing? Yeah. You’ve seen it? Oh yeah. Have you seen it? I had, remember the CPA that will go a name that would say in January, they’ll be like, bro, we did some initial looks at your taxes. It’s like you’re gonna owe about 40 grand. And I’m like, what? 40 grand? But hey, we’re working on it. We’re working on it. So don’t freak out yet. Okay? And then when they get my taxes done, they’re like, good news. You’re actually getting 10 grand back. And then I got their bill for 10 grand. It’s their move. It’s literally their whole move. They’re like, who knows about these moves? These are moves that exist. So what I’m saying is you want to have, you want to have a no brainer that but it doesn’t deceive the buyer. Does that make sense to you? So however you get that, you just wanna get the lead. Hopefully that’s helpful for somebody out there, okay? Next move, and again, I’ve seen churches where they do, where every, if you’re a first time visitor, we’re gonna give you a first time onboarding packet. So for all first time visitors, you get an onboarding gift pack, get to meet the pastor. You just have to have something that is a no brainer. Because if you don’t have a no-brainer, it’s going to get weird. We move on here to page 404. Sorry, 484. 484. If you go through the book, I’ve written all these details and all these specific nuances about optimizing a website, and you can read it later. But the main thing I want you to just take from this is that if your website is not optimized, you’re not going to do well financially. It’s going to put you in a bad spot. So that being said, what questions do you guys have about search engine optimization? Because we’re in our final session of the day, and I want to make sure. Yes, sir. OK, so I’ve got a YouTube channel. And I’m saying, I’m trying to multiply with a search engine channel. Yes, you have a YouTube channel. So let me walk you through YouTube real quick. YouTube is a Google product. And so if you do a search for, let’s do a search for, let’s Just do Tulsa mortgages on YouTube. Yeah, go to YouTube and then just search for Tulsa mortgages. If you just search for Tulsa mortgages, now the reason why Steve comes up there is because that is the term he focused on. Cool? Now I think, Randy, if we do like swim up pool, swim up bar, try that swim up bar, swim up bar. And I think Randy has a video that comes up here after the shorts I think. That one right there. And that one has how many views? 81,000? Okay click it. And it’s because of how he titled it, how he did the description, the keyword, and then he has a really nice thumbnail. And then when you click it it’s got some energy to it. We’re wrapping up. If you remember this is one of those designs that we had. It was that sunken bar, blew you away when you saw that design. We’re now here to see the final product. Let’s go see how it looks. This is an amazing thing to see get built from start to finish. I’m really proud of it. These homeowners were extremely amazing to work with. Check it out. Pause. Okay, so yes, it does work the same. Don’t worry about the views because the people that want to find you are the ones that are going to find it. It doesn’t matter if you have 100,000 views. If you have 75 views and it was 75 people that called you about that, it took me two weeks to rank on YouTube for Tulsa Mortgage because there’s just not a lot of people that were doing it. But if you do search, then you’ll find me. And you’ll probably know your niche. But the key is, think about, obviously, the keywords that your niche is looking for, and you dominate that. You had a follow-up question, I think. Yeah, it was a really, okay, so the client, all of my Yeah. social media platforms, can I just fill that out? I would, I would. Now, I’m gonna bring up the flyover conservatives real quick here. I’m gonna bring up, can I bring up Avery? Is that cool, Avery, can I bring you up here? Is Colton around, too? Is Colton around? Colton, I’m gonna bring you guys up here real quick here. Let’s hear it for Randy. Let’s hear it for Randy and Paul. This will be our final session. So what I’m going to do, let’s take this like a five-minute stretch break. Sean, play some five-minute stretch break music. We’ll come back in five minutes. We’re going to talk about optimizing social media. We’ll talk about that. And then we’ll do our final session here. So let’s take a five-minute stretch break. Feel free to use the restroom, stretch, hug someone you just met, and we’ll come back here at 345. The number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. We are Jared and Jennifer Johnson. We own Platinum Pest and Lawn and are located in Owasso, Oklahoma, and we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah. So, what we want to do is we want to share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now. I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminix, they’re both $1.3 billion companies. They both have 2,000 to 3,000 pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually nonexistent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has, by being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts, and staying on top of those podcasts to really help with the listing and ranking there with Google. And also, we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, asking our customers for reviews. And now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed pest and lawn company in the Tulsa area. And that’s really helped with our conversion rate. And the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411%. So 411% we’re up with our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now, our closing rate is about 85%, and that’s largely due to, first of all, like our Google reviews that we’ve gotten. People really see that our customers are happy, but also we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one and done deal. It was a system that we followed with Thrive in the refining process. That has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah. Here’s a big one for you. Last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals, more new customers last year than we did the first five months. I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year, from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. It’s incredible, but the reason why we have that success is by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews. That way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists that when everything gets done and it gets done right, it creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast like Jared had mentioned that has really, really contributed to our success but that, like I said, the diligence and consistency in doing those in that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives. And also, it’s really shown that we’ve gotten the success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive, we were basically stuck. Really no new growth with our business. And we were in a rut. The last three years, our customer base had pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah, and so we didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in, but Thrive helped us with that. They implemented those systems, they taught us those systems, they taught us the knowledge that we needed in order to succeed. Now it’s been a grind, absolutely it’s been a grind this last year, but we’re getting those fruits from that hard work and the diligent effort that we’re able to put into it. So again, we’re in a rut. Thrive helped us get out of that rut. And if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline. But that’s what it’s going to take in order to really succeed. So we just want to give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore. I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42 percent increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense. Starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proof and turnkey marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983, and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello, my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Crockrell, head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers, and web developers. And they run 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So in the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks he’s doing reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires helping them grow their companies. So I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical This is a critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. Like one of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So, amazing guy. Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. That’s what I like the most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best of you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. I was really most impressed with him is when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me he’s like, I’m not going to touch it. I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. Anyways, just an amazing man. So, he impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate. Anytime I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or navigating competition and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months, he helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns, because our clubs are all closed for. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey, guys. I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys. We appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. OK. This is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? It’s 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 van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from 4 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 ten 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. The Thrive Time Show, two-day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13 point business systems that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. When 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. And 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’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. 2020 was our best year in sales. We were 142% over what we were in 2019, which was the previous high sales year for the company. So it’s definitely a huge step in the right direction for us. My name is Nick Beslik. My wife and I own Security Glass Block in West Dallas, Wisconsin, just outside Milwaukee. Purchased the business end of 2019 and winter is typically a slow time of year, but it was kind of too slow for, for what I was looking for, being a new business owner. I happened to be talking to this contractor, a customer of ours, and mentioned how he’s been working with the leadership initiative and really brought him back from almost having to close the doors as a business and really has brought them back strong. So I heard about it with him and decided to kind of reach out and see how they could help us out. Currently, we’re working with them as a business coach. Obviously, they’re also helping us with our marketing, with our website, getting us to the top spot on Google, really helping us boost our Google reviews. But really, they’ve also helped us, being new business owners, they’ve helped us work through the checklist, putting together checklists for employees, getting rid of toxic employees, you know, not being held captive by our employees and not being able to own the business and grow the business how we want to by having the old culture that was kind of still instilled with the previous owner. So right now we’re really working to kind of purge some of that old mindset of the eight original employees that they have or down to one that currently is still here. So again, just getting rid of that old mindset helped us put together a process, put together the interview, the group interview system to get a lot of people in here in a short amount of time to really find the people that are going to work best with us and how we want to build the culture moving forward. In previous roles and previous life before owning this business, I worked for a large company. We would have plenty of consultants come and go for different various parts of the business whether it was marketing or IT or sales, things like that. So it’s just the follow up, constantly getting in here, meeting once a week with a business coach, checking on what we’ve done from the previous week, making sure that we’re getting done what we need to be getting done to set ourselves up for success in the future. If we wanna be independent of the business or have the business work independent from my wife and I as owners, so that way we can do other things or pursue other interests. It’s really just having the time to set the business up for success, put the processes in place. I just think that’s the huge difference from other consultants that I’ve worked with in the past is the constant follow-up, the pushing you to get things done versus, okay, it’s not done, no big deal, we’ll just kind of move on mentality. So that’s been a great help for us. Extremely happy, I’d probably say about nine. The other one is probably just me still kind of being new owners. Last year, we had the COVID kind of came at the beginning of the year, but then the whole summer we had the best year that the company’s ever had. So it was an extremely busy spring through the end of the year. So, just the time on my behalf to sit down and get things done that needed to be done to work on the business rather than working in the business was a real struggle. So, still something we’re working through, bringing on new talent within the sales and the installation side of our business. As of right now, it’s just been a huge help. We still have a long way to go to fully get there. However, I think it’s been a huge success for us just in a short amount of time. But again, it’s also helping us put together a process that the company can run on without me being here every day. And so, having that Having that, eventually when that’s all put together and running smoothly and we have the right people and the right seats on the bus, I think that’s really going to help us. It’s gonna open up more time for me to be able to spend with my family, which is the ultimate goal, or to spend time doing other interests or pursuing other business opportunities in the future. So definitely, definitely recommend working with the leadership initiative. 2020 was our best year in sales. We’re 142% over what we were in 2019 which was the previous you know high sales year for the company so it’s definitely a huge huge step in the right direction for us. We’re currently outgrown our current facility. So that’s a good problem to have. We need to figure out how we can do that in the future. But yeah, the sales have gone up ridiculous amounts. And I think that’s a good part to the leadership initiative and just really getting us to the top of Google at this point. As of this point, like I said, it’s been a tough year. Because we’ve been so busy, it’s been hard for me to work on the business due to the high increase of sales, which is, again, a good problem to have. But now that we have those people, getting the right people within the company that can take over some of those day-to-day operations that I was doing pretty much everything for, is definitely going to help. Besides just the comfort level of, hey, we’re losing 35 years of experience with people that are leaving, if you had asked me in the spring or the summer how I felt about that, I would have been extremely nervous. But right now, just with the processes in place, again, getting people in here to in the group interview system along with just the the checks the checklist the checks and balances of making sure everybody’s doing what they need to be doing to have the company run smoothly has been a huge weight off my shoulders we need to we need to enact those things at this point but right now just knowing that it’s there knowing that we’re working on it and working towards those goals is a huge emotional support for me at this point. for me at this point. So that’s definitely a win in my book.