Business Podcast | What Gets Scheduled Gets Done + The Purpose Of Knowing Your Goals, Living Intentionally & Defining Your Boundaries + How to Gain Traction In a World Filled With Perpetual Distraction

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrive Time Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to give what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. 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 C and Z up on your radio. And now three, two, one. Here we go. And what I’m going to do on this session is I’m going to try to drill down on one particular business. So does anybody here have a business that currently not a theory, not a theory, not a theory, but an actual business and or organization that you would like for me to pick on? Anybody have a real business and or organization, it’s a real business or real organization that act not a theory, not a theory. I don’t do well with the theory. Yes, sir. What is your name? What’s that JD? And what do you do, sir? College planner. Okay, college planner. Alright, so we’re gonna put here stairs, I’m gonna give you the red marker of integrity. Let’s put up there somewhere on the board college planner. And we’ll work through that. College planner, college planner. We’ll come back. We’ll come back to that. Okay, college planner. Okay. And I’m going to bring up here. Dr. Sherwood. Dr. Sherwood bring up here real quick here. Dr. Sherwood. There he is. Sherwood. He’s a real person. Okay. Dr. Sherwood. Ah, okay. And so what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna go 90 miles an hour. This is a real person, Dr. Sherwood. Wonderful guy. It’s been an honor to work with him and serve him. It’s been great. So, by the way, if you don’t want to die from COVID, good guy to go check out. If you don’t want to die. If you do want to die from COVID, take remdesivir and my dad’s lamb, write that down, work on the pronunciation so it’s not awkward when you want to die, just say, please give me remdesivir, I want that, please. It’s patented by George Soros in China in conjunction with Gilead and Midazolam. You gotta get good at it. People, we lose credibility when we can’t say they’re crazy, nefarious drugs to them. So you have to say, I would like a Midazolam, please, and remdesivir, because I want to die, and then they’ll go, oh, that’s what you want, that’s what kills people. Then say, please put me on a ventilator, because I hear 88% of people die, I want that, too. That’s how it works. Okay, so everybody grab a seat if you can. Grab a seat, grab a seat. Woo, hey Colton, Colton, can you say something a little secret like, shh, everybody grab a seat. Something like that, just kind of a, there you go, great, awesome. Okay, so we’re going through this board of questions. We’re going through this board here. I was gonna be very clear. Dr. Sherwood, I’m not asking you to tell us your revenue goals, but why do you and your wife have to know your revenue goals? Although you’re in the business to help people, I get it, why do you have to know your revenue goals at Sherwood.TV? Well, I think there’s a couple reasons. Number one, if you can’t measure it, then why do it? And I think number two, if you can’t pay the bills and it’s not growing, then why are you doing it? I mean, like, when I look at the whole revenue thing, I’m not looking at it from like one dimension. I’m looking at it from two or three. I’m saying if I do the right things, the right things will pay off for me. And if I give the right things, I’ll be given more. And so I’m always looking at all the metrics. Are what we’re doing, is it paying off or is it not? So, and I want to be very clear. I’m going to help somebody out there sort through this because somebody out there, he needs to get this pep talk. What you like to do might be a hobby. Okay. Say that again. What you like to do might be a hobby and it might not be a business. It might be a hobby. So things I’m into is goats you can probably tell. Chickens, you can probably tell. I’m into that. I like that. I like my waterfall. I like building things. I always like building. Every time you come by I’m always building something. But that doesn’t pay me money. People don’t come here and go, please let me gaze upon your waterfall, $10. I just like it, but it’s not a profit center. Are we on the same page? So you’ve got to make sure your business is profitable. Box two, the number of deals needed to break even. Stairs, when you work with a client, how often does the client have no idea how many sales they need to break even? And the answer is just more. Clay, it’s pretty much 100%. When we first start out, there’s not very many new clients that know their numbers. Now we’re going to go to the extreme of that, and I want to get your thoughts on this. People have asked me for years, why do you only take on 160 clients? I’ll just give you example. I know Nick There’s Nick like Nick Nick last night. You did a Q&A with pastor Steve Chakalanti Pastor Jackson you guys were doing a Q&A and I watched it while we were sound checking up here because I wanted to see what You guys were doing and I really really like the ministry. I like it, you know, and so But I don’t ever want to work with a client or an organization where I don’t know the owner anymore. I don’t know if that makes any sense to you. I don’t want to have a thousand, and Devin, can you try to figure out what’s going on with my microphone here? But I don’t want to have a thousand people where I don’t know everybody. And it’s, are we on the same page? And that maybe is what you want to do. I only want to have 160 clients. So a lot of times people will come to me and they’ll ask me, they’ll go, what are your goals? I’m like, I’ve been pretty clear. I wanted to have four goats, 40 chickens, one wife. One wife, what? Five kids. You know, these are the goals I have. I don’t really have aspirations to buy crap I don’t need to impress people I don’t know. You know, and that’s something on page zero. You might wanna write that down. A lot of people wanna buy crap they don’t need to impress people they don’t know. And that, you gotta figure out your break-even numbers, but you also have to figure out like what’s the point. So you and your wife, you’re both into fitness, that’s what you do, but you’re also into running your business. Why don’t you have like 48 locations in 48 states? And how come you’ve focused on the model that you have where you can serve people all across the country, but from one place? Yeah, well, brick and mortar businesses are kind of going away, aren’t they? So right now, because of COVID, we look at that. We didn’t like it, but it opened up the door to a whole new funnel and a whole new ability to go global, which was good. So we have one location. We don’t believe in debt. We can serve people around the globe right here in Tulsa. Now, the number of hours you’re willing to work, Clay Stairs, this is, I find this is a huge problem with couples. This guy, I don’t like this guy. It was a fun conference and then he brought it up. I just find that this is something I’ve found and work with me, just go there, just detach yourself from the person you’re sitting next to. Okay, here we go. So I find that people don’t have the same goals and a lot of times they’re married to each other and then they work in the business. So an example, imagine that we were on a football team, okay, and this guy’s the quarterback, you’re Tom Brady, okay, and I’m a tight end, okay, and you’re a receiver, you know, and you call the play, and I’m like, dude, I’m not doing that play. And you can feel a little tension in the huddle, and then you go, dude, I’m not doing the play either. And the other guy’s like, well, how come he’s not doing the play? And you go, because I’m his brother, and his punk ass screwed me over in fourth grade, and I ain’t following the play. And that happens in businesses every day. People are like, well, I didn’t call the leads. Why do you call? Because if you knew that he didn’t take out the laundry, you wouldn’t call the leads either. And I’m not having sex with him either. Or calling the leads. And so some people can work with their spouse and some people can’t. But I would advise you today, if you have a spouse and you’re working with them, sit down and figure out how many hours a week you’re going to work. Even if you work with them or don’t work with them, you have to have boundaries. Why do you have to have a schedule that works for you and Dr. Michelle, who you work with? Well, my wife is my best friend. I wouldn’t rather be with anybody else, of course. But here’s the thing with this, with work-life balance with a couple. It is a gift to be able to work together. That’s awesome. Secondly, though, we schedule a date night once a week, regardless of whatever happens. That’s time we have, so we have a boundary around that. It’s got to be tight. If we don’t, we’ll begin to work on the business more than we’d be willing to work on our relationship, and it’s got to be the inverse. Having a schedule that makes sense is… What gets scheduled gets done. I think we talked about that, page zero. What gets scheduled gets done. You’ve got to do… Again, stairs go back to you. You have a portfolio of clients that you work with and you like to keep a certain number of clients and that’s the number you like to have. Why do you not have a goal to have endlessly more and more clients? Why do you like to stick at a certain number and stay at that number? Just with my wife Lisa and I, we love, have you guys ever heard the five love languages and everything? Okay, one of ours is time and touch, okay? I’m kind of liking the touch, if you know what I mean. But the time and touch is both of ours. And so we are, the whole reason why we started the leadership initiative was to create time to be together to touch. And so we traveled together. It was very difficult at the beginning of my company because I was having to do a lot of travel without her because I didn’t have enough money for her to go with me. But over time, we’ve made more and more money so we’re able to travel together. Now as a legislator, I do a lot of travel and she’s able to be there with me. So we’re in a wonderful, wonderful spot right now of being able to spend time together. We’ve got a wonderful house out at the lake, and it’s just fantastic. So I know that I could grow the business more, but to grow the business more at this point is going to be stealing away and going back to the 80 hours a week that I did when I built the company. And I just, I don’t want to go back there right now. I’m really happy with where we are right now. Now Sherwood, you go to the next box here. You defined your unique value proposition. You are a holistic family medical group. That’s how I describe it. My wife, my kids, whenever they’re sick, not feeling well, we send them to you. That’s where we go. We go there. The kids go there. You’re not recommending prescription. You don’t do the pharmaceutical thing You don’t recommend that you’re not constantly getting people on medication people are like changing their diet It’s kind of you know you you change the way they live and then you treat more of like I would say the cause as Opposed to just a symptom, but there’s a lot of doctors in Tulsa that can’t articulate what they do differently They’re coming to go. I’m a medical doctor, and I’m the best so I’m asking you to write down somewhere in your book, what is your unique value proposition? Like, what is it that you do differently than others? So as a business consultant, what I do, I’m not saying this is what you should do, this is what I do, I tell people, the first consultation is free. And by the way, I’ve gone on some crazy trips as a result of doing the free first consultation. Some journeys, they’re crazy. Sometimes I go, how did I end up on this call? And I think this every two days. I’m like, this is crazy. But I’ll do the free consultation because I grew up poor and I know what that’s like to grow up poor. So I don’t mind that thing. I only work with 160 clients because that’s what I do. We have scholarships to help people that need that. Our haircut chain, it’s a dollar for the first haircut after that’s a membership. I know my model and that’s my model. So you know your model, but a lot of people don’t. What happens if you don’t know your unique value proposition? Like if you can’t articulate that succinctly? You are gonna be like chasing shadows. You gotta be so directed to know what you do and know how to explain it. I mean, for us, it’s pretty simple. You know, I’ll use a couple of questions to drive it home. I’ll say things like, you do understand that America is in the most unhealthy state in the history of the world. Yes. You do understand that no one in the room here is born with a medication deficiency. Yes. Wouldn’t you think it’s cool to figure out why things are happening and avert those things happening before they happen? Yeah. And so ultimately with that, if you don’t know what you’re doing, it gets you sort of on this drift as the Napoleon Hill book talked about. And you get further away and you start looking for shiny balls. Try for anything you can and that’s misdirection. Get focused and stay on that like a laser. Now you go to, I’m going to switch to a different business real quick. So we go to here, branding, okay branding. Let’s go to EITRLounge.com. Stairs will go to you, it’s a haircut chain. And Kirk, you were the first member, that’s Kirk Fire, first member of Elephant in the Room. Captain Kirk has his own table. You were the first? First member. Now let me tell you, this is true. Kirk, I’ve been working with Kirk, he has an insurance agency, and I worked with Kirk for about a decade, it was awesome working with him. And at the time I had a family member that said, I wanna open up a hair business. And I said, well, I don’t. You know, so that’s how it started. And then they said, well, you put money into it. I go, I don’t wanna put in money. They said, will you put in money? I don’t want to, nope, don’t want to. Now here’s what I will do, for every dollar you put in I’ll match it. Because I’m into math and I don’t want to lose my money. So put in the money, we’re matching, we build out the location and the first we start stairs and I don’t know if you were in the building Kirk at that time, I think you were around the building at that time. And we’re building out, who’s ever built out a store, location, a building, whatever, who’s ever done it? You pull the permits, the city guy comes by and says, hey, you only have two bathrooms. You’re gonna have to get a other stall. You’re gonna need to add another of this. You gotta move the plumbing. I’m going, so I have to dig through the concrete down to the dirt to fix the plumbing? Couldn’t you have thought of that before we started the plumbing? But how many of you have ever dealt with the city? It’s like talking to a rock, but a mean rock that hates you. Mean rock, why do you hate me? Okay, I should have learned, sorry, rock. Ignorance is no excuse my bad who’s ever dealt with the city so I have to hire a guy to come out and redo the plumbing after we just did the plumbing guys did the plumbing all of a sudden I hear this guy screaming and I’m like upstairs he’s downstairs I go downstairs and there’s blood everywhere I look at the guy’s foot is in the shape of a triangle it’s a triangle foot the foot of a triangle which is not the standard shape of a foot. I’m looking, I’m going, geometrically speaking, this is unusual. So the guy, he was trying to cut the concrete, cut his foot in a triangle shape. So I’m like, we got to call 911, ambulance, the guy shows up, get him to the hospital. Well the guy who was the general contractor at the time who was doing the work, he calls me and says, bro, I gotta be honest with you, I lied to you about my workers comp. I don’t have workman’s comp. So I told them that you hired him direct. So now I’m getting sued. I’m dealing with the, you know, I’m going, how many of you ever been in business? You ever seen this? This is the stuff behind the stuff. No one talks about this stuff. Okay, so then the people around me who are not me, which is everybody else, they start to say things emotional. Maybe it’s not meant to be. Maybe it’s just not the right season. And I’m not being sacrilegious. I’m just telling you things that were said. Maybe God doesn’t want us to open. I’m like, have you not read the story of Abraham? Are you not aware of the level of persecution that he went through? He had to leave his kinfolk. He had to switch his occupation. Come on now, Captain Adversity. Let’s move through this. I don’t know. Yeah, of course you don’t know because you’re not putting in all the money. We’ll continue. So we build. We build the location. Have you ever dealt with the city before? Have you ever had a city problem? Have you ever dealt with the city? Oh yeah. Okay. You ever had a problem with the city? I have not had a problem with the city. Okay. So then I’m renting from a person who’s not me. I’m renting the building from someone who’s not me. I pay my rent check. Dude doesn’t pay his bill. Kirk, do you remember the water getting turned off here? Remember this story? So the water gets turned off. So the city shows up, turns off my water. If you’re cutting hair, that’s a key component of shampoo is water. We’re going to do a dry shampoo. It’s going to be kind of weird. We’re going to put shampoo on your head. You’re going to leave feeling gooey. No, we got to have water. So said person tells me, dude, they turn the water off. Maybe it’s not meant to be. I said, I’m going to hold you upside down by your ankles into the manhole and you’re going to, you’re going to turn that thing back on. It’s like, that’s illegal. I don’t care what it is. It’s happening. So we’re grabbing this guy. He’s like, dude, I’ve never done this before. I don’t want to. Shut up. Get in the hole. So he’s in the hole. Turn the water back on. Haircut problem solved. City, not a bunch of accurate people. They don’t they don’t remember that the water’s been turned back on for months. Anyway, go talk to landlord. Landlord, I’m paying your rent. Are you using the rent to pay your bill? Nope How much are you behind? Are you all of it? Do you have a water bill in a year to probably yeah years. That’s the real stuff. That’s the stuff behind stuff So meanwhile, you’re trying to grow your business the highfalutin stuff the marketing the branding the unique value proposition, but there’s emotions How do you rise above the emotions when these kinds of situations happen? How do you do it? I put the emotions to the side and I focus on the facts and I get straight to the core issue. When I’m dealing with somebody, when I’m dealing with contractors, when I’m dealing with vendors, it’s the same thing. Straight to the core issue. Again, I echo what Clay said. I don’t care about their feelings. It is all about what you’ve got to do. So then- And Clay, let me toss in there. It’s much more helpful if you are around other people that have that same mindset of not letting the emotions get in the way. I’ve been extremely blessed to have Clay in my life as I’ve grown my business, who’s always brought me back when I’ve wanted to go emotional and wanted to listen to the emotional talk. Clay’s always been great too. I have no emotion. I’m like a really, really good guy to grow your business, but not a guy you want to take camping. I went camping one time because a men’s group called me. Braxton called me and said, we should go camping. I go, I don’t know. It’s never really gone well. And he’s like, I go show up as a bunch of men. Who’s ever been to like a men’s camping retreat? A bunch of guys burning a fire, sleeping in a tent. And I’m going, I show up, hey guys, it’s getting dark. And I started to realize they’re going to sleep out here. So I’m like, hey, hey, they’re all talking about their feelings like you ever feel like you’re alone and you’re you and your wife ever struggle to connect. I’m like, Braxton says, you haven’t said anything to anybody the entire time you’ve been here. It’s getting weird. I’m like, because I don’t want to talk to you about it here about anything ever. I just lampoon this situation and leave. And he’s like, he’s like, well, are you going to spend the night? Hell no. I’m staying in a hotel, I got my hotel bro. That’s why I’m camping, I’m camping, I’m glamping. So I’m like a good guy to grow a business, not a good guy to go camping with, okay? So anyway, so we’re growing this hair business and we did the first haircut for a dollar. Kirk, you remember that, the first haircut was a dollar. And then I am not a stylist, and the stylist, one guy who claimed to be a member of the Lebanese army, and this has been long enough in the past I won’t get sued for saying the truth. He claimed to be a member of the Lebanese army. He’s this guy’s like, I left the Lebanese army to become a stylist. His whole story is made up, but he’s a stylist. And how many of you know a lot of deadbeat dads become barbers? Who knows that? It’s a real thing. You know, it’s a real, they don’t want to pay taxes, you know, they want to pay taxes. They don’t have money withheld. They don’t want to support their kids. It’s a real thing. So I’m like, hey, Lebanese deadbeat. Were you in the military? He’s like, I was never in the military, I got to be honest with you. This is my story, it’s my core story. I’m like, it’s your core story? It’s my hero story, it builds rapport with the customers. I’m like, dude, you straight up tell people? He’s like, absolutely, I lie to everyone, it’s what I do. I’m like, dude, that’s crazy! Okay, one guy, his name, we’ll call him like CJ, I’ll go, your name’s CJ? He’s like, no, it’s not. Is it, is the name that I pay you on, is that your? It’s fake, fake. I’m like, you’re fake? That’s the hair business, there you go, welcome to it. So we’re cutting hair, and Kirk comes out with the first haircut, and he goes, I don’t wanna exaggerate, but you said something like, Clay, the haircut was like 50 minutes. It was an hour. And he, and Kirk is super funny, and Kirk’s like the sneaky funny where he says funny, but it’s not maybe, it’s just direct, and it’s so funny, it makes me laugh. He, Kirk says, I feel like we were having like a relationship. And I go, what? He’s like, I’ve never spent that much time with another man. And he’s like doing the head massage. And I was kind of like, I got to get out of here. So he’s in the office telling the stories, which are true. It’s fine. He was being very, I mean, it was a guinea pig, first customer, and they would cut like this. Our guys would go, cut. And they would take a step back to analyze and then cut. And Kurt was like, this has to stop. No one’s going to come back. So my dad, my dad, you remember my dad? My dad passed away from Lou Gehrig a couple years back, but he used to do accounting for me, and my dad was like, Kirk really hates the place, doesn’t he? And I’m like, well yeah, he just told me it took an hour, that’s insane, son. No one’s gonna come back for a one hour haircut with other men, it’s weird. I’m like, dad, get in there and get your haircut. So my dad goes in there, and my dad’s like, it was like, it was weird. It felt like we were, I don’t wanna, and I kept discovering everybody who came in didn’t come back, except unless they were like a client of mine. I was like, please go back in there, please. And so we work on it, you work on it, you work on it, and Dr. Sherwood, we were charging $15 for the haircut. And after doing about a thousand haircuts, we determined that if we did that, we would always lose money. What had to change, you think, if we’re losing money every time we’re doing a haircut? Change the model, change the employee, change the pattern. Do something different. Now there’s so much emotion. How about that? The emotion, there’s an emotion because the people who wanted the $15 haircut, they don’t want to change it. Stairs, why does the guy who suggested the $15 haircut not want to change the business model? He’s making people happy. He’s not really looking at money. He’s looking at the emotion. He’s like, people love us. They say it’s the best deal in town. I’m like, subsidized by me, bro. I get to have an hour long conversation with my hair, with my hands and other men’s hair. So then, we had a meeting, because if you have a business, this is important, page zero, you want to have a weekly meeting and a daily huddle. Every business in here, a weekly meeting and a daily huddle. You look at the numbers every week. So I said, okay, we’re changing our membership model from $15 a haircut to $42 a haircut. And everybody in the room, cut and everybody remembers like six people they’re like you mean you want me to tell my client his haircut’s going to go from 15 to 42. I said yeah tell him it’s inflation. This is pre-biden by the way this so inflation I’m like just tell him it has to happen it’s a mathematical certainty we’re going to go into bankruptcy it’s not going to survive you got to raise the price and he’s like I don’t want to raise the price because people won’t come back. I said that’s what we want we do not want $15 people coming back. Hopefully this is healthy for somebody. So you charge for your services. I do. And I was telling Carrie and Chad at the break a moment ago, they were asking how we do this. In our business, this is true. I think everybody gets this. You got to have skin in the game or it means nothing. You set your own value. Value is determined by you, not by the market. You got to value yourself enough because if people don’t have skin in the game, I’m telling you they’re not going to value you at all. That’s why the insurance model will not work. So you charge for your services? You bet. That’s just it. Okay, so again I’m just trying to give you a real business model so you can see it. So we go back to this here. The three-legged marketing stool. Sherwood, you are the Dream 100. You appear on a lot of podcasts. I do. As an expert who talks about health, you also have people that have left you reviews based upon their service, their experience, and you have video testimonials that are powerful. How much has that impacted your business, having video testimonials? You got to be able to communicate the story of the real people. Real people tell real stories, gives you real success and real credibility. You meet them where they are, and people can relate to that because people struggle with life, with health and all that when they go from a place of prison to a place of freedom and they tell a story, man, that gets you in the heart. And that draws people in with the idea of can I do that too? And that resonates in the video, hopefully, if you do it right, of yes, I can, I’m going there. And real quick, it is election season, we’re getting geared up, so we got to have a new pandemic. So it’s called White Lung this time. And White Lung is walking pneumonia, which we’ve had since forever. And am I correct? Yeah. Okay. So white lung, walking pneumonia. So if you are looking for a doctor that won’t kill you, step one, if you don’t want to die from COVID, do nothing and you’ll be fine. Step two, if you’re looking for treatment, budesonide, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, butrimdesivir, and midazolam, that’ll kill you. But if you’re looking for a doctor that you can trust, Sherwood.tv. Anything else before we have to let you get back to where you’re done No I think people need health and one line from the Napoleon Hill book and people I recommend that book for everybody by the way How to outwit the devil or I wouldn’t devil he Clearly indicates distraction is is death disease and lack Has that not been the modus operandi for the last couple of years death disease and lack? back, eliminate that fear by being well and eliminating debt in all areas. Don’t make an excuse. Go out there and do it. Take it and do it intentionally with your own effort. You’ve got to do it. Nobody else is going to give it to you. Let’s hear it for Dr. Sherwood. Dr. Sherwood. Yeah. Okay, I’m going to bring up here. I’m going to bring up, if I can, Vidar. I’m going to bring you up here and Pastor Leon Benjamin. I’m going to bring up you two guys real quick here. Okay, so we’re going to keep going through the flow here. Okay? So now you’ve got to have sales conversion. Are we on the same page? Everybody up to this next box, this is box number 7. Sales conversion. You have to sell something. And so I’m going to give you two examples of people that have to sell something. And these guys sell the gospel. It’s a tough sell. Taylor Swift, the Chiefs. It’s a lot of distractions. Doja Cat, Doja Cat. You’ve got litter boxes and local schools kitty litter who’s seen this kitty litter You got people identifying as animals. You got people cutting the nuts off their sons saying they’re doing it because their kid was confused Who was confused you got you know, I’m saying we got that going on So these are people that sell the gospel, but eventually you do have to sell something. Okay. Now, this is not a biblical truth This is just my opinion if you do not sell your business will go to hell. So you should write that down on page zero. Okay? Now, if you don’t sell, so at the end of the day, you, Vidar, I’m going to pick on the Benjamins here next, you have to convince people at some point to donate to Safari Mission, and then when you go to Africa, you have to convince people to turn their lives around and to become self-sufficient. Yes. Is that a tough sell? If you don’t know what you’re doing, it can be. But how do you do it? How do you go about convincing a local guy to stop praying to some false God, serve Christ? How do you do it? Well, it’s the same thing. People have a problem, right? So you just present the solution. And we have the solutions for where people are struggling in all kinds of areas of life. So we just go to them and say, well, you don’t need a handout. You need to understand the mindset that it requires to come out of the hole that you’re in. And you start having that conversation, and you go, well, we’ve got a training program that helps you to do that. And now you have a sales conversation. When did you recognize you were called into ministry? I was six years old. I recognized I wasn’t called into ministry the moment that I could understand words. I’ve always thought church, no, no, wouldn’t want to do it. Not going to be a pastor, wouldn’t want to be a missionary, wouldn’t want to. And just in the last three, four years for me, I started to figure out there are good churches. I just ran into some bad ones. And this just in God is real. Jesus is real. A lot of great pastors, a lot of how many of you’ve come to that conclusion recently? You’re like, there’s some good ones. There’s some bad ones. You kind of, you know, maybe you put your faith in a guy. I put my faith and hope in a pastor back then, I won’t mention his name, may he rest in peace, who told me at lunch one day, biggest pastor in our area, he said, you know, I don’t believe in Jesus. And I’m like, isn’t that a core thing you teach on Sunday? And he’s like, well, yeah, but it’s just for me, it’s more of a show and it’s how I do it. And it’s just, I’m going, it’s a show? And he’s like, it’s just been a show. It’s how I make money. And I’m going, no, now it can’t. It wrecked my mind because I put my faith in who? The pastor, not in Christ. Does that make sense? So if you’re like a pastor, I mean, it is tough because you’re like in a glass box. The world’s looking at you. Everyone wants you to make, if you make any error at all, we’re like, hypocrite. Meanwhile, we can’t see ourselves. I don’t even know this to be true. So for me, in the last four or five years, it’s really become clear to me. There is a place for ministry. There’s a place for business. There’s a place for ministry. There’s a place for business. And I find a lot of times good-hearted people take their business and they want it to be a ministry, and therefore it’s a unprofitable thing that’s not sustainable. And a lot of people have a ministry and they want to make it a business, and then it gets… How many of you know what I’m talking about? So these are people that I wanted to bring up who come from a little different angle But the same principles are true, but they’re trying to lead people to Christ. So that makes any sense So but dar what’s been the hardest challenge if you kind of look at the workflow here? Because you’re really in a great spot now your ministries blessing thousands. What’s been the hardest part of this if you look at the workflow here Where’s your management in the workflow here management so Managing right here this kind of this we’ll get into that step 10, managing people. Yeah, because you’re dealing with me, I’m dealing with cross-cultural things, so the way you communicate and address issues here is completely different from how you do it over there, and if you don’t realize that, then you might be doing your part wrong. And we’ll get into that later today, so you said management’s the toughest, what’s the easiest part, what’s been the part for you where you look at that and you go, that is easy. That’s my flow. That’s easy. The easiest thing for us is to deliver the product. So delivering the gospel, teaching people how to be self-sufficient. Get people in a room and helping to become leaders in society. That’s easy stuff. And we go back here to page number… Steers, I want to pick on you. We go back here to page four. Four. As far as your goals, what’s the most rewarding part of what you do in your mind right now? It’s when I see lives that have turned around and you know that you had something to do with helping them turn their lives around that’s the most rewarding thing. There are days that are hard days and you just go back and look at those testimony videos that are on the safarimission.org and you go okay that’s why we do what we do. To me it’s always been the magnification. It’s seeing somebody had a little idea and then see them and they’re like this dude just did 24 million dollars of sales this year and when I first met him it was like a startup. And when you see somebody magnified and they’re a really good person, it’s so fun to watch that happen. It’s also the worst part of my career, when I magnify a jackass and I bet wrong, and I’m like, this guy might be the Antichrist, oh no. And I’m like, the Antichrist, I didn’t want, I mean, he had signs, I wasn’t, how many of you have ever done that, you’ve ever mentored someone who became your like competitor or your enemy or your So stairs, what’s the hardest part of this workflow? You thought this was difficult for your clients when you work with them because you’ve had so many success stories But what’s the hardest part? Okay. Let’s see probably for me when we first started clay was the sales piece Yeah, remember that. Oh, yeah Definitely and but then with my clients, it usually does come down to management and I would come into probably sales as well, management and sales. And I want you to circle everybody right now. Number nine, definitely be systems. Everybody look at this page five. I want you to circle any area that you struggle with. Just circle it. Look at it. Who knows what Asperger’s is? Could someone describe to me what Asperger’s is? That’s a tragic, tragic name. What is it? Describe it. Let’s see. Who can describe Asperger’s to me? Yes. Asperger’s is a plant that is used to make a lot of things. So this is just real. All my clients that struggle with management tell me I have Asperger’s at least once. Like, you have Asperger’s. Clay is on the spectrum. No, this happens though. I go like, no, it’s just I’ve been self-employed since I was 15 years old and thou shalt hold people accountable or whatever that looks like. I don’t know what that means to you, but I can’t care about how people feel. I just need to grow my, I mean, that’s why I was a 25 year old guy with 80 employees, is because I don’t really sit around going, how do you feel about DJing this Saturday? No, you committed to DJ for the wedding, you’re gonna do it. You know, and that’s just the world I live in, but people will start to label you, as you, you know, you’ve probably been labeled. Well, you’re not good at math, you have mathophobia. Mathophobia? It’s a phobia of math, from the Greek word phobia of math. Oh, no, who’s had that? Someone told you you weren’t good at math, and now you’re like 40 and you go, I just don’t do math. I got mathophobia. Who’s had that happen? OK, so as you’re growing your your your ministry, and I’ll go to the Benjamins here. Have you ever had a thing where like it’s been a thing and then somebody said, well, you just can’t do that because you. Has ever happened to you? Has there ever been somebody ever tried to tell you you can’t do it? Your vision isn’t going to happen. Yes, I’ve been told many times that you can’t, you have to bring resources to people. You can’t, in Africa, you can’t train people to come out of the hole they’re in. I’ve heard that too many times, but it’s too late now, we’ve proven them wrong, so. So I’m going to say this here, and he, from page series, you write this down, we talked about it earlier. Again, there’s 330 million Americans who are identified. There is a total of, at any given point, 3% that are self-employed, 96% fail. So you have a one in 1,000 chance of being statistically, being successful as a business owner. So I would just write this down. It’s statistically not probable to become successful, but it’s really easy if you’ll just do the work. You know what I mean? I get statistically not probable, but it’s very, very easy if you’ll do the work. So now we go into Pastor Leon Benjamin. I’m gonna pass the mic here. Pastor Leon and Maria. Pastor Leon, he flies in here every single Thursday night. His wife, Pastor, they fly here every single Thursday night from where, Pastor Leon? Virginia. Virginia. Every single… Thursday. And how I met this guy, not statistically probable. Who remembers the lockdowns? I tell this story often, but who was doing some church cheating like your church was closed So you’re watching another guy’s church who was doing that Your tide is still going over here, but you’re washing over there who’s doing that and I’m like man I am tithing over here, but the where the action is is Sheridan Church I’m watching pastor Jackson, and I’m watching pastor Leon Benjamin and people go. How did you meet this guy? I’m watching this guy in Facebook And I’m like I don’t know if there’s a thousand people in his church or four people in his church. I don’t know. All I know is he plays every instrument his wife does too. And he’s always passionate to the point of sweating. He’s working for my salvation. He’s just selling it. He is selling it. I’m like, this guy is selling it like George Foreman is selling grills. Now listen, how many of you on that do like Facebook and it suggests the next video and you’re like, okay, I’m watching like eight in a row and he’s just like talking about, you know, overcoming certain things or committing to Christ or he’s speaking out against sin and, you know, leaving your former man behind. And he’s talking about the, I’m going, I don’t even know what’s happening. I can’t turn it off. It’s in, it’s like a, it’s like a tractor beam sucking me in. And I called him, I did the one in Tulsa. I said hey pastor Leon I would like you to do the opening prayer at the real way at the open America thing And I’d like you to be involved in the route in the in the I just need to be there remember that You want me to be here? Who are you? I’m the Caucasian sensation sit here. I’m your brother from another mother. Come on remember that we were just talking I’m just like trying to sell you like come on. Just get the Tulsa Roussel. I’m come on baby. Mike Lindell will be there over there. Yeah, I’m like Jim Camille’s will be up in the house. Come on. He played Jesus. Come on. Don’t don’t let Jesus down. Just come on Remember that I’m just like working it and he’s finally okay. I’ll do it. I’m like yes I think we’re it’s like who’s who saw the movie Armageddon where you’re rounding up all the random people to stop the asteroid That’s sort of like the reawakened to her. I’m on the phone with General Flynn and Eric Trump just come on we gotta pull up the asteroid okay so he shows up and then after he had such a so many people said they were so touched by his unapologetic teaching of the gospel I said hey there’s really not churches in Tulsa at that time that I knew of outside of Sheridan there might have been one Assembly of God Church that I knew of there’s like maybe I mean Jackson maybe I’m exaggerating maybe there was like ten churches in the metro area that weren’t locked down at Nick is that accurate maybe am I exaggerating? I mean, it wasn’t a lot. It was like maybe 10 churches that weren’t locked down. I was going, can you come to Tulsa every week on Thursday? Remember that? I remember. Okay, now since that happened, what kind of people have you met over the last couple years? I’d love if you could share the kind of the journey you and your wife have been on here. Yeah, I mean, first and foremost, to God be all the glory, to the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ, and using Clay Clark, I call it Clay’s closet. Bringing people together who would not normally be together, and since then, we started the church, the Real Remnant Church at the other building, May 6th of 2021, so it’s almost two and a half years, flying back and forth. American and Delta, we are now officially cousins. So they know who we are, my wife and I, and Clay, you and Vanessa, I’m saying the heart of gold, being able to come here and build and to meet, like you say, Jackson Law Myer, we both ran for office, he ran for Senate, I was running for Congress at the time while we were building the church and and so God has been good People have been drawn. Dr. Mark Sherwood. He’s our doctor. I’m in Virginia and dr. Mark Sherwood is my doctor Okay, and and Maria, so we’ve met amazing people You are definitely what I call a connector in the spirit and in the natural and in for business And so we’ve been enjoying this trip and we know that God is about to expand supernaturally and we’re gonna kill COVID because the models are false. I learned that from him. We’re gonna kill election tampering. We’re gonna kill, President Donald Trump is gonna get back in office. And we’re gonna bring some things where our churches are really, really doing the gospel and of the kingdom of God here in America again. So and we’re gonna we’re gonna break here for lunch a minute but every single Thursday which includes this Thursday we have church here every Thursday night at 630 and what’s crazy this is some facts for you they’ll blow your mind. Usually we’ll have about 50 people that are up in here and then they’ll be on average 22,000 people that watch online. So once one Sunday I was like I’m gonna add up the number of people that stream on every big church in Tulsa’s YouTube. So I’m gonna go to all the big churches and look at the YouTube streams. And it’s like seven times more people were watching him on the best Sunday, or the best Thursday we had, it was seven times more people were watching the ministry on a Thursday than all the churches combined. And on average, it’s double. And it’s because people are all over the country and they can’t find a church. And so they’re like, I live in Dallas, I can’t find something, so I’m just going to watch you guys. That’s kind of what’s happening. And I say all that before we take our break, is that sometimes there’s things on your page five that are not financially motivated. And for me, as crazy as it sounds, I’m not very financially motivated. I’m more of a justice motivated person. I’m bringing to justice. So like if I just want to make sure that I’m treating you the way I want to be treated and in a way that’s probably not healthy, you know, because like if I’m ever late, I hate myself and I have to get really mad at myself for a while. And if you’re a client, I want your business to grow probably more than you do, because that’s kind of my mindset. That’s my mindset. And I just want to encourage you if you’ve got a business calling, but you want to get involved in a ministry, I’m going to introduce you to different ministries so you can meet these folks. But one thing that I have found that works really well for my wife and I is we just set it and forget it on a couple ministries where every time we sell a haircut at Elephant in the Room, we just donate a set amount to help a certain organization. And that way, every time we cut hair, I don’t have to think about, are we doing good with the money? It’s just, it happens. Am I communicating? And so it’s a way to do ministry even though I’m not in ministry. And so when he comes out here on Thursday, I try to make sure the videos are working and it’s streaming and make sure it’s organized. And I feel like that’s what I’m supposed to do. I’m not a pastor. I don’t feel called to be a pastor. That’s not my thing. But I feel like I’m supposed to help that. Are we on the same page? And so you’re going to hear more from Vidar and Pastor Leon over a couple of days here. But tonight, you’re 630, you’re preaching tonight? Yeah. Maria, what’s he preaching on? What are you preaching on? What’s the game plan tonight? What are you preaching on? We’re talking about unity, and Pastor Steve is right here somewhere, Chakalante. He’s here somewhere. There he is. He’s in the back. We’re going to be tag-teaming, and we’re going to be beating up the devil, and then Clay’s going to be talking about beating up the devil and destroying misinformation and fake news. So tonight, 630? Tonight, 630 p.m. We’re gonna be praying for people I believe people gonna get filled with the Holy Ghost Businesses are gonna get filled with the Holy Ghost I’m we’re just believing God for a powerful anointing with a team kind of like a tag team tonight But the conference will be done today around 4 okay, so you don’t have to come to church tonight But if you do want to it’s at 630 tonight, and then Vidar you’ll be around here And we have a lot of our clients that have worked with you for a long time and can you pass the phone to Vidar real quick here if people want to learn more about your ministry how can they find you here this weekend what’s the plan well I’ll be around during break you know today tomorrow Saturday I’m in Phoenix and then I’m in Nairobi but so far I’m is not org drop us a line on there as well I can get in contact with you after after you after these couple days but these couple days, just see me at break time. All right, JT, so hypothetically, in your mind, what is the purpose of having a business? To get you to your goals. So it’s a vehicle to get you to your destination. And would you need profits to get there? I mean, when you have a business that’s successful, in your expert opinion, would you need profits to get you to your goals? Yeah, because if you have a 15 million dollar business, but you have 15 million dollars of expenses It’s kind of pointless. Holy crap. All right. So the question I would have here for you if you could take like 10 minutes or less and see if you could save 3,000 bucks a year by reducing your credit card fees. Would you do it? Yes, absolutely. Oh Why would somebody out there who’s listening right now who has a sane mind why would they not go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card to schedule a ten minute consultation to see if they can reduce their credit card fees by at least three thousand bucks a year? Why would they not do it? Yeah, why would they not do it? Maybe because they didn’t understand how you said the website. This tree is a symbol of the spirit of the Griswold family Christmas. Now that’s clear. That can be true. So I encourage everybody to check out Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. What would be another reason why someone would not be willing to take ten minutes to compare rates to see if they could save $3,000 or more on credit card fees? Maybe they think it is a waste of time and that it won’t. It’s not possible. There’s somebody out there that’s making more than $3,000 every 10 minutes and they’re like, nah, that’s not worth my time. Hello, we getting there, I’m ready. We getting there, I’m ready. There’s probably some, someone out there. Okay. They would think that. Well, I’ll just tell you folks, if you’re out there today and you’re making less than $3,000 per 10 minutes, I would highly recommend that you Because you can compare rates, you can save money, and the big goal, in my opinion, of building a business is to create time, freedom, and financial freedom. And in order to do that, you have to maximize your profits. Holy crap! Now, one way to maximize your profits is to increase your revenue. Another way to do it is to decrease your expenses. It’s a profit deal. It takes the pressure off. JT, is there any other reason why somebody would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they could save a total of $3,000 a year on average? I am at a loss and I cannot think of any other. Shampoo is better. I go on first and clean the hair. Conditioner is better. I leave the hair silky and smooth. Oh really fool, really. Stop looking at me swan. Let me tell you a good story here real quick. I actually years ago compared rates with this company here called IPS. It’s Integrated Payment Services and I scheduled a consultation. I don’t know that I was skeptical. I just thought whatever I’ll take 10 minutes. I’ll compare rates. I can’t tell. You can tell me I’m a doctor. No I mean I’m just not sure. Why can’t you take a guess? Well not for another two hours. You can’t take a guess for another two hours? And in my case, in my case, my particular case, I save over $20,000 a year. Holy crap! Wow. Which is like groceries when my wife goes to the organic stores. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great, okay. Oh God. Everything okay, ma’am? Oh, it’s just that you’ve only scanned a few items and it’s already 60 bucks. I’m so scared. Okay, I’m a trained professional ma’am. I’ve scanned a lot of groceries. I need you to stay with me. It’s just that my in-laws are in town and they want a charcuterie board. This isn’t gonna be easy, so I need you to be brave, all right? What’s your name? Patricia. Patricia, all right. I need you to take a deep breath. We’re about to do the cheese. You know, that’s the difference between eating organic and not organic. So because my wife eats organic, I had to take the 10 minutes needed to compare rates to save the $20,000 a year on credit card fees just for one of my companies. One question, what’s the brand name of the clock? The brand name of the clock, Rod, the name of the clock, it’s an elegant from Ridgway, it’s from Ridgway. Let’s buy the clock and sell the fireplace. I encourage everybody out there, go to thrive timeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. You schedule a free consultation, request information, a member of our team will call you, they’ll schedule a free consultation. It should take you ten minutes or less, and they’re going to compare rates and see if they can’t save you more than $3,000 a year off of your credit card processing. You were hoping what? I wouldn’t owe you money at the end of the day. No, you don’t owe us money. Because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the goal of the business is to create time freedom and financial freedom and in order to do that, you need to create additional profits. 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. Okay, 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 non-existent 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 getting up on what they’re 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%. Okay. 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, 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. And that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah. So here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals and more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or 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 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. 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. You know, 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% 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 are 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. And Clay’s done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with like running the business, building the system, the checklist, 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 like Lee Crocker, or Head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with like Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours on the day-to-day. He does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers and web developers and they run a hundred and sixty companies every single week. Think of this guy with a team of business coaches running a hundred and sixty companies. In the weekly he’s running a hundred and sixty 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 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 is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. And that’s what I like him most about. 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 you. And Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. My 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. And when we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal, and they were super excited about working with him. And he told me, he’s like, I’m not gonna touch it, I’m gonna turn it down, because he knew it was gonna harm the common good of people in the long run. And the guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, he doesn’t, his highest desire was to do what’s right. And anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate. Anytime I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or you know 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 how to get back open how to Just survive through all the kovat shutdowns lockdowns I’m Rachel with tip-top canine and we just want to give a huge. Thank you to claim 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, right? This is where we used to live 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 house with our new neighborhood. 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 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. 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, 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. 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’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. If we go back eight years ago, think about the number of clients you had back then versus the number of clients you have now. As a percentage, what has been the growth over the past eight years, do you think? We’ve got to inspire somebody out there who just doesn’t have the time to listen to their call. Well, okay, so Clay, it’s like I would go up and down from about $10,000 a month up to about $40,000, but it’s up and down roller coaster. And so now we’ve got it to where we’re in excess of 100 clients. That’s awesome. And so I would have anywhere from 5 clients to 20 clients on my own with networking, but I had no control over it. I didn’t. Without the systems, you’re going to be victimized by your own business. For somebody out there who struggles with math, if you would say that your average number of clients was 30 and you go to 100. As a percentage, what is that? I have doubled every year since working with you. So I’ve doubled in clients. I’ve doubled in revenue every year. That’s 100% growth every year I’ve worked with you. So I’m looking. We’ve been good friends seven, eight years. And I’ve got doubled five times. Which is just incredible. I mean the first time you do it, that’s one thing, but when you do it repeatedly, I mean that’s unbelievable. We’re working our blessed assurance off this year to double. We’re planning on doubling again. We’re incorporating new, some new things in there to really help us do it, but we are going to double again this year. I started coaching, but it would go up and down, Clay. That’s when I came to you as I was going up and down and I wanted to go up and up instead of up and down. And so that’s when it needed a system. So creating a system is you have nailed down specific steps that you’re going to take no matter how you feel, no matter the results, you lean into them and you do them regardless of what’s happening. You lean into them and it will give you X number of leads. You follow up with those leads, it turns into sales. Well, I tell you, if you don’t have a script and you don’t have a system, then every day is a whole new creation. You’re creating a lot of energy just to figure out what are you going to do. Right. And the best executives, Peter Drucker is a father of modern management. He said, the most effective executives make one decision a year. What you do is you make a decision, what is your system? And then you work like the Dickens to make sure you follow that system. And so that’s really what it’s all about. So with a script here, we have a brand new gal that just came in working for us. She nailed down the script and she’s been nailing down appointments. Usually we try to get one appointment for every 100 calls. We make 200 to 300 calls a day per rep. And she’s been nailing down 5 and 8 appointments a day on that script. So she’s making how many calls a day? She’s making between 200 and 300 calls a day. And our relationship is weird in that we do, if someone were to buy an Apple computer today, and or let’s say you buy a personal computer, a PC, the computer is made by, let’s say, Dell. But then the software in the computer would be Microsoft, let’s say, or Adobe or whatever that is. So I basically make the systems and you’re like the computer and I’m like the software. It’s kind of how I would describe our relationship. Tim, I want to ask you this. You and I reconnected, I think it was in the year 2000 and, what was it, maybe 2010? Is that right? 2011 maybe? Or maybe further down the road, maybe 2013? 2012. Okay, so 2012, and at that time I was five years removed from the DJ business, and you were how many years removed from tax and accounting software? It was about 10, 11 years. We met, how did we meet? What was the first interaction or some interaction where you and I first connected? I just remember that somehow you and I went to Hideaway Pizza, but do you remember when we first reconnected? Yeah, well we had that speaking thing that… Oh there it was! Victory Christian Center, I was speaking there. My name is Robert Redmond. I actually first met Clay almost three years ago to the day. I don’t know if he remembers it or not, but I wasn’t working with him at the time. I asked to see him and just ask him some questions to help, you know, direct my life to get some mentorship, but I’ve been working with Clay for now just over a year. The role I play here is a business coach, business consultant. I work with different businesses implementing best practice processes and systems that I have learned here by working with Clay. And the experience working here has, to put it real plainly, has been just life-changing. I have not only learned new things and have gained new knowledge, but I have gained a whole new mindset that I believe wherever I end up will serve me well throughout the rest of my life. Since working with Clay, I have learned so much. I mean, I would like to say almost everything about business in terms of the different categories. I haven’t learned it all, but I’ve learned all about marketing. I’ve learned about advertising. I’ve learned about branding. I’ve learned how to create a sales process for organizations in any industry. I’ve learned how to sell. I’ve learned how to create repeatable systems and processes and hold people accountable. You know, how to hire people. It’s almost like every aspect of a business you can learn, I have learned a lot in those different categories. And then, again, the mindset that I’ve gained here has been huge. You know, working here you can’t you can’t be a mediocre person. You are a call to a higher standard of excellence and then as you’re called to that standard here you begin to see those outcomes in every area of your life. That standard of excellence that you want to implement no matter what you’re involved in. I would like to describe the other people that work with Clay are people that are going somewhere with their life. Marshall in the group interview talks about how, you know, the best fits for this organization are the people that are goal oriented. So they’re on their own trajectory and we’re on our own trajectory and the best fits are those people where there can be a mutually beneficial relationship. That as we pursue our goals and we help the business pursue those goals, the business helps us pursue our goals as well. And so I’d say people that are driven, people that want to make something of their lives, people that are goal-oriented, focused, and they’re committed to overcoming any adversity that may come their way. Clay’s passion for helping business owners grow their businesses is, it’s unique in that I don’t know if there’s anyone else that can be as passionate. You know, whenever a business starts working with Clay, it’s almost as like Clay is running that business in the sense that he has something at stake. He’s just serving them. They’re one of his clients, but it’s as if he is actively involved in the business. Whenever they have a win, he’s posting it all over his social media. He’s shouting it across the room here at Thrive. He’s sending people encouraging messages. He can kind of be that life coach and business coach in terms of being that motivator and that champion for people’s businesses. It’s again unique because there’s no one else I’ve seen get so excited about and passionate about other people’s businesses. The kind of people that wouldn’t like working with Clay are people that want to get through life by just doing enough, by just getting by, people who are not looking to develop themselves, people who are not coachable, people who think that they know it all and they’re unwilling to change. I would say those are the type of people and in short anyone that’s content with mediocrity would not like working with Clay. So if you’re meeting Clay for the first time, the advice I’d give you is definitely come ready to take tons of notes. Every time Clay speaks, he gives you a wealth of knowledge that you don’t want to miss. I remember the first time that I met Clay, I literally carried a notebook with me all around. I was looking at this notebook the other day, actually. I carried a notebook with me all around and I just took tons of notes. I filled the entire notebook in about about three or four months just from being around Clay, following him and learning from him. And then I would say come come coachable. Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to And then I would say come come coachable. Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.