Business Podcasts | Best-Selling Author Michael Gerber Shares the Actual Purpose of Building a Successful Business & How to Produce Both Time & Financial Freedom + Celebrating the Derrick Sisney & Russell Weimer Success Stories

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrive Time Show. And the good look as the father of five, that’s what I’m a dive So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi It’s C and Z up on your radio And now 3, 2, 1, here we go! We shot it from the bottom, now we hit it We shot it from the bottom, now we hit it Yes, yes, yes, and yes, Thrive Nation Today’s a very special occasion because you never know, Josh Wilson Who you are going to meet at a Trump Hotel room You never know when you go to the Trump Hotel in Chicago, you never know who you’re gonna meet there. And I met the man and the myth, the guy who’s behind the E-Myth series of books that absolutely changed the way that I approach business. Michael Gerber, the author of the E-Myth. I met him there in the Chicago Hotel, and I asked him if he’d be on the show. He made a poor life choice, and he’s decided to be here with us. Michael Gerber, how are you sir? Delighted to be here. Oh wow, you are just absolutely a living legend and your book helped so many people. But before we get into your book, and specifically chapter 5 of your book, could you share with the listeners where you grew up and kind of your background, just so they know that you weren’t born at the top of the mountain. I certainly wasn’t. I was born in New Jersey, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, of a couple of beautiful Jewish parents and part of a growing family. in the heart of the Depression, just as the horror was taking place in Europe, and just before the Holocaust was to take place in Europe, I grew up as a little boy in that season without any understanding of what was going on in the world around me. My parents decided to move from New Jersey to California in 1947. And we did move to Anaheim, California, and I was raised in Anaheim, California. And my journey started in Anaheim, California, and my journey continued for the rest of my life to the point where you speak to me here today. And I could go into all of that, but it is such an uninteresting story about Michael Gerber, where he was, what he did, how he did it, why he didn’t do it, what he could have done. So let me ask you this. When did you kind of start to figure out, when did you start to figure out what you wanted to do. I was a jazz saxophone player. I was an encyclopedia salesman. I did this, I did that, I did that, I did this. All the time that I was doing that, I was reading and reading and studying and studying philosophy, spirituality, would ever be attracted to until I hit the age of 41. Now hear me, all of this started, Clay, then at the age of 41. 41. And at 41, a friend of mine who owned a small advertising agency in Silicon Valley, California, asked me if I’d meet with one of his clients who was having difficulty converting leads that my brother-in-law’s ad agency was creating for him into sales. And I told my brother-in-law, Ace, that’s his name, that’s still his name, God bless him. I said, Ace, I don’t know anything about business, and I certainly don’t know anything about high tech business. He said, Mike, you know more than you think you do. Just meet with a guy, let’s see what happens. So he’s dropped me off to meet with a guy, we’ll call him Bob. Bob had a high tech product. He had sales engineers having difficulty selling that product and Ace dropped me off and said, Bob, Ace, Michael, guys get to know each other, I’ll be back in an hour. So obviously Bob said to me, Michael, what do you know about my business? I said, nothing, Bob, because I didn’t. He said, well, what do you know about our product? I said, less than that, Bob. Obviously, he’s looking at his watch and thinking, I’ve got an hour with this guy. He doesn’t know anything. What in the hell am I going to do with him? Instead, he said, if you don’t know anything about my business and you don’t know anything about my product, how can you help me?” And I said, I haven’t a clue, Bob, but we’ve got an hour to kill, so let’s start so I can ask you some questions. And that’s how all this started. I began to ask Bob questions and I realized, despite the fact that he owned a small business, despite the fact that he was the CEO of a small business, despite the fact that he thought of himself as an entrepreneur starting that small business, every answer Bob gave me was anecdotal. There was no facts underlying anything he said. So I’d ask more, and then I’d ask more, and then I’d ask more, and then I’d ask more. And I suddenly realized I did know something about business. I knew that selling is a system. And I knew that Bob didn’t have one. Thrive Nation, that deserves a quick timeout right there. That is absolutely huge. In order to create time freedom and financial freedom, again, in order to create both time and financial freedom, you must create systems that are both repeatable and quickly learnable. You have to create sales systems that other people can implement who are not you. And that way you can quickly train new members of your team how to create a repeatably, predictably successful system for sales. Otherwise, again, it always comes down to you doing the selling. You’ve got to create repeatable systems that wow the customers each and every time. So I would ask you today, specifically, when somebody calls your business phone, how is the phone answered? And if you don’t know the answer to that, make a call script for answering your phones. You need to have a call script for answering your phones. You need to have a pre-written email that you send to new potential clients. You need to have a frequently asked questions script. So that way, when anybody calls you and asks your new hire frequently asked questions, they’re going to have all the answers. You want to think about every aspect of your system, and you want to make it scalable and repeatable. You want to make sure that your on-hold music is music that is going to wow the customer each and every time. You want to make sure that every interaction with your customer is, in fact, scalable. It is repeatable, and it does wow the customers. I told Bob, without a selling system, you’re not going anywhere with this. He said, what’s a selling system? I said, just think of it as a script. First you say this, then you say that, then you say this, then you say that. First he does this, then he does that, then he does this, then he does that. And in the process of doing this and doing that and saying this and saying that, something happens and you can predict what that’s going to be after you’ve gotten it down, really gotten it down into a groove. Into a groove? Into a group. And he said to me, well, can you create that for me? And I said, of course. So when Ace came to pick me up, he said, what happened? I said, I just got a job. He said, what do you mean a job? I said, I’m now a consultant. He said, what do you mean a consultant? I said, I’m now consulting Bob on creating a selling system. He said, what do you know about that? I said, I guess everything. And that was the beginning of it. And that was the beginning of this. That was the beginning of e-myth. That was the beginning of everything I’ve done since that point in time. Remember keep this planted firmly in your mind that entrepreneurship is simply solving a problem for your ideal and likely buyers in exchange for compensation. Again entrepreneurship is simply solving a problem in exchange for the compensation that you seek for your ideal and likely buyers. Think about all of the problems that you can solve for your ideal and likely buyers. Make a list of all the problems that you can solve for your ideal and likely buyers and offer your customer, offer your ideal and likely buyers, those solutions in exchange for the money you seek and you will create both time and financial freedom. It is that easy my friends. It is unbelievable. Find a problem you can solve for your ideal and likely buyers and then make the system repeatable. Make it scalable and make sure that it wows your ideal and likely buyers. Make sure that the business can’t work without you and you shall experience both time and financial freedom. So you might say I didn’t come to the realization of why I was here on the planet until I turned 40. Forty years old. Let me ask you, at the age of 40, you began to have these epiphanies, discovering that many of the people out there, most of our listeners, most people on the planet, we have bought into this thing called the E-myth, or we’ve bought into this wrong mindset to business or this wrong way about looking at business. Can you explain what the E-myth is for people out there that don’t know what the E-myth stands for? Sure. The E-myth is the entrepreneurial myth. It’s based upon the assumption that everybody believes anybody and everybody who starts their own business is an entrepreneur. And the fact is they’re not. What I learned with Bob and then with Mary and then with Judy and the various little companies that I worked on behalf of Ace’s ad agency until the point it became obvious that I was going to do this on my own, not in Ace’s ad agency because Ace didn’t believe in what I was saying either. When I came to realize that none of them were entrepreneurs. They were all what I came to call technicians suffering from an entrepreneurial seizure. All they did was create a job for themselves. True. So every small business is a job for the idiot who started it. And now they’re working for a really big idiot themselves. And they’re saying to themselves, yeah, but this isn’t working. And of course it’s not working because they didn’t design it to work, they didn’t build it to work, they didn’t launch it to work, they didn’t grow it to work. How to do that, design it, build it, launch it and grow it, is what the E-Myth is all about. If you’re out there today and you found yourself creating a business that has created financial freedom for you, but you don’t know how to escape the wage cage, and you don’t know how to actually create time freedom to go along with that financial freedom. That’s why we have our in-person Workshops and the one-on-one coaching to learn more go to thrive time show calm That’s thrive time show calm and click on the conferences button And there’s no upsells at our workshops, and you’re gonna be seated by real entrepreneurs People that actually own successful companies who are now where you once were these are real entrepreneurs That needed to learn how to create both time and financial freedom. And many of our conference attendees come back year after year because now that they have created time and financial freedom, they want to refine the systems to make them even more efficient. Or they want to receive a refresher course. Maybe they want to get re-inspired. But it’s really awesome because you’re going to be seated by real entrepreneurs just like you who own a company that is already doing well, but they just want to create both time and financial freedom at this point. And so, I would encourage you to check it out today. Go to Thrivetimeshow.com and then click on the conferences button and book your conference tickets today. And don’t let finances be an obstacle here. If you’re in a tight spot, we have scholarship options available. Essentially, we’ll meet you where you’re at financially to make sure that the finances, of purchasing a Thrivetimeshow.com ticket are not going to exceed your ability to pay for them. And so, without any further ado, back to my interview with Michael Gerber. What I find is that some of us think that we know what we’re doing. So some of us, we think, and I was building my first company, DJ Connection, before Brent Lawless gave me your book, I was having quote-unquote success. I was selling a lot of wedding packages with DJConnection.com. I was booking thousands of events. I was winning awards. I was being told I was the best entertainer. My company was great. And when I read chapter five of your book, you mentioned that I was creating a job and not a business. And I started contemplating, well, what’s the difference between busyness and a business? Because they’re spelled slightly differently, but busyness, there’s a Y in there. And I don’t know why I’m in business when I’m busyness. Busyness means I don’t know why. And then business means a business exists to serve me. There’s an I in business. A business exists to serve me. Okay. And I had to read that chapter over and over and over. And you challenged me in the Chicago hotel room at Trump Hotel, you challenged me to read the chapter again. So I read the book again. I read it, I went through all my highlights and I took photos of them and I sent it to your wife because I wanted you to know that I’d read it again. And so I would like to go into, if we can, to chapter five of your book and to page 51. We’re gonna open up the book, E-Myth Revisited, where you wrote, “‘Every adolescent business reaches a point “‘where it pushes beyond its owner’s comfort zone. For me, it was DJConnection.com. The boundary within which he feels secure in his ability to control his environment and outside of which he begins to lose control. That’s why I wanted to DJ 250 events, Michael, before your book saved me. I literally did 250 events in one year. I personally made the playlist for every wedding. I did everything. Tons of money, no time to spend it. It was awesome and terrible at the same time and the world kept cheering. The world kept cheering. Help our listeners out there that are stuck in this adolescent phase where we want to control everything or we want to abdicate and assign items to members of our team who are poorly trained and then we never follow up. So we either want to do it ourselves or we want to do it ourselves or we want to assign assign the project to somebody on our team who is poorly trained and poorly equipped to have success, and then we do a poor job of following up. Help the listeners out there, my friend. So the evolution of a company from infancy to adolescence to maturity is an absolutely universal process. Most small companies, we’re talking about small companies, we’re talking about a hamburger stand, we’re talking about a meat market, we’re talking about anything and everything that depends upon somebody doing some work. The butcher does the work, the gardener does the work, the hairdresser does the work, the food eclipper does the work. You understand what I’m saying? There’s work to be done. There’s work to be done in every single business on the planet. Now some of that work is very unsophisticated, some of that work is very sophisticated, but despite whether sophisticated or unsophisticated, every single small business owner who starts a business is actually that technician. The hairdresser starts a beauty shop. The guy behind the microphone starts a thing behind the microphone. A chiropractor starts a chiropractic practice and so forth and so forth. Well, of course they do. Because that’s what they do. That’s what they know how to do. You’re correct. Everybody, everybody starts that way. I 100% agree with you. Yeah. So infancy is that startup. Infancy is the very beginning. Infancy was that joyous time, Clay, at the very beginning of what you were doing behind that microphone. Oh, yeah, or you just shine and you you remember that. Oh Yeah, you you just shine. Oh, it was awesome It was a new idea and it was exciting and I did it myself and people here I got to get up every day every day. You got up everything. Tell me this story did that? Absolutely. Absolutely. I’m just like the woman in the beauty parlor. She gets up every day and she goes to work, and she takes out her brush and her needles and her thing, and she goes to work, and the lady that comes in, and the lady who follows, and then the lady who follows, and they schmooze, and they talk, and they dance, and they play, and they do whatever they do, and the lady who comes in loves her, and the other one loves her, and the other one loves her, and so forth and so on, and then she gets busy, busy, busy, busy. That’s where adolescence steps in. Your company grew beyond just the beginning phase. So suddenly you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do this, because if you stop doing this, if you stop doing this, you’re out of business. Oh yeah. That’s the deal. If you stop doing this, you’re out of business. That’s where adolescence begins to take its toll. In other words, you’ve got to get this done, you’ve got to get that done, and you can’t do everything anymore. There’s too much to do, too little time to do it, and also, you don’t know everything that needs to be done. You’ve got to learn everything that needs to be done. Now you’re stretched, stretched, stretched, stretched. Quality’s going down, you’re stretched thin, the quality’s going down, you’re dropping the ball, you’re making money, but now you’re kind of offering shoddy work, shoddy quality, you start to lose the excitement about your business. You feel trapped in your business, Michael, right? I mean, you feel trapped. Yeah, and your kids begin to wonder, where’s dad? Where’s dad? Where’s mom? Where’s mom? How come you’re never home? How come you’re never, how come you’re always working? How come you’re always working? Well, I gotta work, I gotta work, I gotta work. I created this thing that depends upon me because I’m the star. So understand it’s that star issue. I’m the star. It won’t work unless Clay Clark does it. It won’t work unless Michael E. Gerber does it. I’m the star. That’s when the business begins to fail. It begins to fail big time. And what happens is instead of doing this and doing that and doing this and doing that, instead of all of a sudden having people doing it, but they’re not doing it as well as you do it, you had to bring people in, you had to bring people in, you had to bring in a bookkeeper, you had to bring in a whatever. They’re not doing it as well as you did it, so finally you realize they don’t work as well as you do, so you let them go. Let them go. And when you let them go, now it’s still there waiting to be done. And now you get to do it yourself again, because you’ve created a job and not a business. Right. So what do you do? You get small again. Yeah. And that’s what everybody does. They grow and they shrink. And then it goes to adolescents again, and then they shrink, and finally they’re through. So last year, there were roughly 550,000 small companies that shut their doors in this country. 550,000 small businesses that shut their doors, not because of the pandemic. You understand the pandemic, yeah, that’s a problem. But understand the problem I’m talking about is a pandemic and has been a pandemic for generations. It’s worse than a pandemic. What you’re talking about is worse than a pandemic. This happens every year, every decade, over and over and over. And what I find, I’d like to dive into this with you. I have a lot of people that I have been friends with over the years who they start hiring everybody, like you were just talking about. They begin hiring people and then they begin to abdicate, but they think what they’re doing is to delegate. They think that they’re delegating when they’re actually abdicating. Could you talk about this? I see it with accounting almost 100% of the time, where people, they bring in someone to do their accounting, and they do not follow up with them because they’re supposed to be the expert. I mean, could you help the listeners out there and maybe tell us what the difference is between abdicating and delegating? Very simple. Abdication is where you turn over responsibility for something, and there is no system. You turn over responsibility for a result, but there is no system. There’s no method by which that result is intended to be produced. You understand when McDonald’s hamburger stand to perfect the systems in that hamburger store so that whomever he hired would master the system. Master the system. The system was the solution, not the person he hired. In every case you’re talking about, where we abdicate accountability, we’re effectively turning over the responsibility to produce a result to somebody who’s going to do it whatever way they do it. Every single person we turn it over to does it differently. There is no way we do it. If there is no way we do it, there is no, in quotes, McDonald’s. There is no franchise. There is no turnkey system. There is no evolution of a methodology that identifies a brand from everyone else. When you talk about a system, this might sound mean, and Michael, please feel free to argue with me if you need to. You can straighten me out here. But I know people that say to me, business owners, who I meet at conferences or who I meet in my building, they’ll say, Clay, the system is Kara, the system is Steve, the system is Josh. They are, they are, they’re assuming that a person is the system because the person does the job. And then that key person who’s been with them since day one or maybe day ten or maybe month six, they move on. But I have found since implementing your, your approach to business, working on a business, the e-myth approach, I now am no longer dependent upon personalities. So when somebody feels like it’s time to move on, I can encourage them to move on with great joy. I mean, I mean that. I can be happy for them. I don’t have to hold them hostage, and they don’t hold me hostage. Because the system stays here. Yeah. Because you own the system. You own the brand. You own the ability to produce the result that you have designed your company to produce again and again and again and again. So when people tune in, when people come in, when people come to the store, when people go online, no matter where it is, online, offline, it doesn’t make any difference. It produces exactly the result they came to get because it is an intelligent system. That’s the key to the EMIC. That’s one of the critical keys to the EMIC. It’s the system, stupid. I have a, before I let Josh ask you some questions, Josh with Living Water Irrigation is here. Now, I want to brag on Josh. He’s grown a business from $300,000 in revenue to he’s on pace to hit $3 million this year. But last year, Josh, what were your sales last year? What were you in the year at? 1.8. 1.8 million dollars. He’s been a client of mine for a long time, and he’s probably been tired of me referencing you. He’s probably tired of it. He’s probably saying, stop referencing me. This guy doesn’t even exist, probably. He thinks you’re probably like a mythical person, but I show him the book cover, he Googles you, he verifies, he knows you’re real now, and now he’s here with you, and he has some questions for you, Michael. Josh, what questions do you have for the great one, Mr. Michael Gerber? Well, Michael, first and foremost, thank you so much. It really honestly is an honor to speak to you. Due to you and all the coaching from Clay, it’s truly sincerely changed my life and the trajectory of it. So, first and foremost, I’m thankful and grateful, sir. Well, thank you. Beyond that, my first question would be, what is the easiest way for us as a company? You know, we’re having some pretty exponential growth and we’re really excited about it but what’s the easiest way for us to define our biggest limiting factor and for other business owners out there what’s the easiest way to actually define that Michael? Well your biggest limiting factor is what keeps you from producing what you hope to produce. Your biggest limiting factor is what keeps you from producing what you intend to produce, what you hope to produce, what your dream says you’re there to produce. And so everything starts with a dream, a vision, a purpose, and a mission. That’s the most critical thing you have to do at the beginning of all of this. I have a dream, I have a vision, I have a purpose, I have a mission. When I started this thing that I’m so crazed about, when I started in 1977, we started with a dream, a vision, a purpose, and a mission. Our dream then, literally, end quote, was to transform the state of small business worldwide. Our vision was to invent the McDonald’s of small business consulting. Our purpose was that every single small business owner who was attracted to our paradigm and implemented it could be as successful as a McDonald’s franchisee or even more. was to invent the business development system that made our dream, our vision, our purpose possible. So we started our company, we started with the dream, a vision, a purpose, and a mission. So the first thing I would say to you, what’s your dream? What’s your vision? What’s your purpose? What’s your mission? That was fun. Until you then can say, our dream is our, not mine, our dream, our vision, our purpose, our mission, and explicate them clearly to every single person who joins you in your company. You’ll not truly begin to grow it to the degree it’s waiting to be grown. So you want our listeners to define their dream, their mission, and their purpose. Am I correct, sir? The dream, the mission, and the purpose? Dream, vision, purpose, mission. Step one, step two, step three, step four. The first four steps of what I call the Eightfold Path. First, my dream. My dream is the great result we’re here to produce. Second, my vision. My vision is the form our dream is going to take place on the street. Our purpose, our purpose must truly transform the state of our individual customers’ mindset about who he or she is and what he or she can expect from an economic, social, relational, familiar life. And finally, our mission is to invent the system. And it’s always to invent the system. The mission is always about the system at the heart of our great growing enterprise. So you see, what I’m saying is, if you take this little business of yours, just that I’m saying this, the little business of yours, where you’re behind the microphone, where you’re reaching out to your audience, et cetera, and so forth, and you take that dream, vision, purpose, and mission, you can immediately begin to see that the end result is always worldwide. When you were growing the e-myth program and the book and the team, the movement, and you defined your dream and your vision and your purpose and your mission and you began to craft the book, to write the book, to work with clients, to do your research. How long did it take you, Mr. Michael Gerber, to go from consulting your first client at the age of 41 to pinning the e-myth revisited book? How many years was that? The first e-myth book called The E-Myth, Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, was published in 1985. I started my company in 1977. That’s eight years of data and research. Before that book would ever have been written, I had to do it. And so the first years, from 77, 78, 79, 80, one, two, three, four, five, I was working on the Michael Thomas Corporation to design, build, launch, and grow our turnkey capability to transform the state of small business worldwide. The first eight years, you were working on the business, the first eight years, and- Well, the first eight years, and then every year after that so you got to understand it’s you know you do this you do this you do this you do this everybody wants to get it now everybody wants to get it now everybody wants to get it can I can I do this in a year and a half can I do this in six minutes can I do this tomorrow everybody is simply stupid stupid stupid Clay when Because you can’t do anything right, right now. It takes time to absorb what in fact the implications of what you’re setting out to do really are. Because if I’m seriously saying I’m going to transform the state of small business worldwide, that means by doing what we’re planning on doing, the business failure rate is going to decrease exponentially. The business success rate is going to increase exponentially. The experience of people inside of companies is going to be transformed radically. Lives are going to be transformed in the process. That’s how big this is. And that’s why it can’t be done in a minute. I do not want to be even slightly negative. I want to just be very practical. Be as negative as you want to be. Well I want to bring this up because I know that you look like you’re 22 years old. I mean you’re a young man. But you’ve been doing this a long time. And there are certain people who do what Thomas Edison once wrote. He calls it hallucination. Thomas Edison once famously wrote, he said, vision without execution is hallucination. Vision without execution is hallucination. What percentage of the time do you sit down and meet somebody and do you find yourself saying, I wish they would just implement. I mean, at what point do you say, I just wish they would implement. Is it a third of the time that people seek knowledge and they don’t want to implement, is it a 10th of the time? How often do people seek the knowledge you give them the knowledge, but they don’t want to implement because I hear so many E-Myth success stories. I just want to know what percentage of people get the knowledge and they don’t want to implement. You have to understand. Anybody can come to me at any point in time, and they do. And they could say, I want to do this, or I want to do that, and I say, absolutely extraordinary. And I said, and the good news is, there’s a process for doing that. And the better news is, it’s a universal process. Meaning you don’t have to invent it. It already exists. It’s what I call the eightfold path. Step one, step two, just like I’ve just done. Now what happens at that point is what shapes what happens next. Because what happens at that point is, person might say, yeah, but I don’t wanna do all that stuff. All I wanna do is, all I wanna do, all I wanna do. All I wanna do, all I wanna do. I hear you, I hear you. You don’t wanna do all that stuff. And I said, you have no idea what it takes to do what you just told me you wish to do. But I know exactly what it takes. And the wonderful news is we’ve got a method to make it possible for you to mature in the process of discovering the truth about what it is you’re setting out to do. Step one, step two, and I go back and back. Got it. What they do in that process will tell you everything you need to know. We get to change that. But you understand the only way we get to change that is to take responsibility for our own life, not for their lives, not for hers, not for his, not for its, not for the community, not for the state, not for the government, not for the federal, not for the international. Our life, my life, I’ve got to go to work on my life. Trust in exactly the way they went to work on me in boot camp, and I’ve got to get all of the bullshit out of me so I can suddenly discover what truth means. We don’t even know what the word truth means. Well truth is offensive. Truth is, it hurts. Truth is something people can’t handle. I mean, when you sit down and you explain to a young whippersnapper, some people come to our conferences and they want to know how search engines work. So you sit down and you explain to them how the Google algorithm works and you show them examples and they go, well, I don’t want to have to do all of that. Is there an easy way? And you say, no, you can’t. I won’t get too nerdy into it, but you tell them you have to have the most original HTML content. You have to have a, a canonically compliant website. You have to have the most reviews and the most mobile compliance. There’s four variables. And they say canonical, that’s multiple syllables. It’s not you have to, it’s it has to. So understand not you have to, it has to. What you have to do is come face to face and understand how little you actually know. So if you were to take the average human being in these United States today, if you were to take everybody out there on the street who’s burning everything down and have them take a test, I’m not talking about a hard test. I’m talking about a simple test. I’m talking about your A, B, Cs. I’m talking about your 1, 2, 3s. If you were to put them through that process, the vast majority of them would fail. Absolutely abject failure. And then you’ve got to say, if you don’t even know that, what leads you to presume that you could tell me how to live my life? Time for boot camp. So my point is, one of the greatest things that anybody could possibly do for America is put everybody into boot camp. Everybody goes to boot camp. You’ve got to have a boot camp on whatever you decided to do. You’ve got to have a boot camp because that’s where people demonstrate who they are and what they know and what they do and what they don’t and what they’re not willing to do. Boot camp. Boot camp. You’ve got to open them up. Tears are weakness leaving the body, as my uncle used to tell me. I think what you’re telling us is mind-altering for some people. I want to respect your time. I had a couple more questions on part one of this interview. I wanted to ask you specifically, on page 67 of your book, you wrote something to me, the reader, to all the readers. You wrote this to us. You said, you did the best you could. It’s time to get on with your life, to build your business in an enlivening way. What does it mean to enliven? Is that what you’re asking? Yes, because it’s a word I don’t hear people use. Well, it means to bring true life to it. In short, when folks come to work, they’re coming to invest their life for a particular period of time to engage in work with the intent of producing a result that’s going to add value to every single person associated with that work. That means your customer. That means the guy at the desk next door. It means the guy you report to. It means the woman in the accounting department. It means everybody and anybody who’s joined here, come here every day. It’s like a prayer at the beginning of the experience come closer to God. So I’ve been given to say of late, if we’re born in the image of God, and in Genesis it says we are, then it means we’re born to create. To create what? To create a world fit for God. Well, what would a world fit for God look like? Well, you can begin by reading the Ten Commandments, and you suddenly begin to see that we can engage in a way to of being committed, zealously engaged human beings, creators all, here to create an experience that we can experience as we do it and after we’ve done it and before we do it, that literally brings life to everything I do. Imagine that. And then you see what I mean by that. You have given me. And in the livened existence where I was able to escape the rat race, so today while we’ve been talking, I think my team has probably cut. We have three stores, five stores that are open that cut hair and I don’t have the ability to cut hair. So the barber shop, there’s five stores open we have. So there’s probably 200 people that got their hair cut in the last hour and a half, two hours, about 200 people getting their hair cut. Wait a second, Clay. That’s not true what you just said. Oh, sure. You said, I don’t have to do anything. No, hear me. You have to be something. True. So at the heart of what you’ve created is your energy. At the heart of your energy is a love for God. True. At the heart of your love for God is your determination to transform the state of every human being you connect with in whatever way is possible. Economically, socially, spiritually, relationally, what an extraordinary thing to possess as Clay Clark possesses it. And what an extraordinary thing for Clay Clark to pursue, to pursue with every bit of energy you’ve got. I appreciate you saying that, and I want you to know you unshackled me, personally. It was a thing where you allowed me to get away from the DJ microphone at these weddings, to get away from the day-to-day operations and the reactivity, to be able to build proactive businesses, so now we can hopefully together mentor millions of people. And you have helped me, and I would love to give you the microphone to share what you’re working on now, because whatever you’re working on now deserves a Harry Carey holy cow. Holy cow! We met in Chicago, so whatever you’re working on now deserves a Chicago Harry Carey holy cow. Holy cow! So tell us, what are you working on now, sir? What are you doing? A university spelled Y-O-U, university. A university called Radical U, Radical Y-O-U. I want you to imagine awakening the entrepreneur within every human being on the planet capable of studying, capable of working. That’s what we created. So we have created a university, an entrepreneurial development university to take out to the world and to transform the state of entrepreneurship worldwide to a degree that’s never been accomplished before. Our university is five years long. Our university is devoted to what we call the eightfold path. And every student in our university will discover their dream, their vision, their purpose, their mission, their job, their practice, their business, their enterprise. An evolution of an enterprise from a company of one to a company of 1,000 called Beyond the E-MIT. The evolution of an enterprise from a company of one to a company of 1,000. And here’s the best part. And you can promote this, promote this, promote this, promote this play until you’re blue in the face, but every person within the sound of your voice needs to understand this, that we’re giving the first year of Radical You away for $10. $10? The whole year? $10 for the entire year. 52 weeks, 52 video sessions online, right now. And every single person within the sound of my voice, who can see my face, or see my Panama hat, or see your jacket, whatever it is, every single human being, I’m inviting them to join us in Radical You. When those people join us in Radical You, Clay, we’re going to bring folks like you, folks like the other gentleman who just said hurrah, folks like every person you’re connected with who wants to become a teacher of creativity, you’re going to come and join us at Radical You, and you’re going to teach something, and they’re going to teach something, and I’m going to teach you what to teach. But hear me, that’s what we’re working on. Five million students within the next three years. And then guess what’s going to happen? What’s going to happen? Apple. Apple, the company, is going to acquire Radical You. Michael, I want to respect your time. I know you’re taking your wife on a great date tonight. I gotta go. Thank you. Thank you so much, my friend. I really do appreciate you. Clay, see you in Oklahoma. This show blows my mind. And now, without any further ado… 3, 2, 1, boom! Boom! Well, you may be considering becoming a client and I thought, well, one of the best ways to make that decision is to hear from somebody that we’ve actually worked with for a long, long time. And he’s become a good friend and I’m excited for you to hear his story. Derek Sisney, welcome onto The Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? Oh, I’m doing great, sir. Thank you for having me. Hey, so I want to start at the end and then we’ll kind of work towards the beginning here. So in terms of like, how did the business coaching experience impact you personally? Because when I first met you, you were working in corporate America and then you went to start your own business as a consultant. How did the business coaching change your life or impact your life? It was, I would say the biggest thing that really impacted me was the fact that I had no direction. You know, when you’re doing stuff like this, trying to create a business, trying to grow a business, trying to scale a business, or doing anything like that, you’re just kind of going through the flow. It’s all emotional, it seems like, and you’re just kind of guessing, and you’re hoping that you hit on the points. The biggest thing that I took away, the thing that I learned the most is being organized. I mean, waking up early, right? 4.30, four o’clock in the morning, 3.30 in the morning, getting up early, getting organized, getting your day said, and being diligent. Oh gosh, that was diligent doer, diligent doer, Proverbs 10 for her, right? So, how would you describe, I mean, if you had to, has it been a positive change in your life, has it been terrible? I mean, if you were to talk to somebody and they said, how did business coaching impact you, how would you describe that? told this to my wife is that, so my last name is Sisney and it’s you and the team have changed generations of Sisneys. So it wasn’t just me, it started with me but not just that Clay, it impacted in my church, it impacted in the youth group, it impacted at the university level, across the board it has impacted every fiber of who I am, everything about me, things that I didn’t know was capable, that was even inside of me to be able to do it in the first place has been impacted. And then my children, I have a daughter who’s 11 and a daughter who’s five, I’m teaching them about business, I’m teaching them the diligence, the waking up early, the planning, all those things. So it’s been life-changing for generations of us. Now I have been self-employed since I was 15, and so you have, you know, you hop into my world, but people hop into my world, I don’t, I guess I don’t even recognize that there’s a world out there that exists that doesn’t wake up early, that doesn’t achieve their goals, and that doesn’t know what they want to do with their life. I’m just, that’s how I am, and so if you remember, you first heard about me, I think, through a radio show. Can you tell people how you first heard about me and what your first experience was working with me or hearing about me? Yeah, so I did. I heard about you through the radio show and I didn’t think anything of it. I was like, okay, who’s this guy? Because you hear a lot of get rich quick schemes, all these things. You put you in that category in the beginning. And then I was actually applying for jobs and I was like, well, I heard about this guy. So I went and I came and I’ll never forget the day that I walked in and I look around and I’m like, oh man, what did I just walk into? And the music was blaring. I mean, there’s all these lights, all this. It looked like, I remember thinking, I’ll bet this is how Facebook is. If I was to walk in Facebook, this is probably how it is. And then Daisy showed me around and she introduced me to you. And I remember you saying these words, you said, are you married? I said, yes sir, I am. And you said, you said, I think that you’ll be a hard worker just from talking to me this few minutes. And you said, you got the job and I turned you down. So that was early on. And then I came back four years later. You don’t have to apply for a job. That’s how you started out, right? That’s exactly right. That is exactly right. And then four years later, I came back. You came back four years later as a business growth consultant and you’re looking to add some clients and increase your revenue, I’m not asking you on this show to share how much money you ended up making per month, but how much is a percentage or how many times did we help you increase your income by? Honestly, it was priceless. The percentage is, I don’t remember talking to someone, I think it was you, you introduced me to some people as well. I mean, in reality, it was almost infinite. So I mean, the most money I ever made at one time in a year was $50,000 before ever joining this. And let’s just say it was double, triple that. So at the- So you tripled your income? Yeah. Okay, okay. So yeah, wait, now just to be clear. You’re saying you tripled your income and you learned new life skills and we’ve worked together every week. We have, every week we had a meeting, every week. And the purpose of that meeting is to make sure that you know what to do and that you, I call it IDS or identify, discuss, solve. We identify what needs to be done. We discuss what needs to be, you know, so you know what you’re doing. And then we solve it, like here’s the homework, you know. Can you talk to the listeners out there about the importance of having those meetings every week, where a lot of times you might even be going over the same subject, but what’s the importance of having that somebody harassing you on a weekly basis about following the systems? It is so important because people think that they can do it themselves. And some people might have the ability, but to have somebody kind of kick you in the tail, I always, I used to explain it to people, is it’s kind of like taking a basketball shot. I’m not the best basketball player by any stretch of the imagination, but having somebody who understands the game beside me and watching me take those shots and say, hey, if you just tweak that just a little bit, you could probably make that better, or you can make that shot more, or if you do more shots, right? If you think, take it from an NBA perspective, right? They’ll shoot the same shot over and over and over again. They’ll shoot that same shot from that same spot a thousand times, but that’s what makes them so great. And it’s the same thing with business, doing the same thing over and over and over again. It sounds repetitive and it sounds like, okay, it’s insanity, right? But in reality, it’s those small, diligent things that happen for us to grow a business or grow ourselves or anything like that. Now, you’ve been able to shadow multiple times. You actually were in the office quite a bit. How would you describe maybe the impact that shadowing me made on you when you see that I’m actually working within a highly scheduled environment with an actual to-do list. How did that impact you? It was amazing to be able to see it and actually see somebody do it. A lot of people, including books, they say, do this and then they may not do it themselves or their leadership won’t even do it themselves. That happens a lot. And so watching you and even the leadership and the people inside the building do exactly. And if I remember right, I think it’s mandatory for everybody who works in your building. They have to have a clipboard and a schedule. Yeah. They have to have the clipboard. So, I mean, everybody doing that, and it’s not a grade, but it’s like, where’s your clipboard? And they used to call it their brain. So we’d say, where’s your brain at? So it was amazing to actually see it implemented and worked on every single morning. Self-help. You labeled me as self-help there for a minute, and I worry about that because I’ve met a lot of self-help authors. I’ve met a lot of them, I won’t mention their names on today’s show, but people I’ve met, and backstage, you know, at the events, I’m a speaker, you’re a speaker, and they’re like, hey, how do you, how do you, you know, do you actually help your clients grow? And I go, well, yeah. I mean, all my clients, they pay $1,700 a month, it’s month to month, and they grow. And they’re like, yeah, but I mean, I mean, really, what’s the catch? I go, what do you mean, what’s the catch? And these self-help guys, they go, well, you know, I have a program I ultimately signed them up for so they can become a certified coach underneath my program. And that’s how they make their money. And they sign up people to long contracts. And that’s kind of their game is to, you know, keep talking people into the next thing. You’ve been to our workshops. And I don’t do that at our workshops. How would you describe the workshops themselves? The workshops are eye opening. And it’s almost, you could go to a workshop and learn everything that you needed to learn. The problem that I see a lot of people have is they’re like, okay, this is great knowledge, but they don’t understand how to apply the knowledge. And that’s where Clay’s, Clay Clark’s wisdom comes in. No, you’re not self-help, but you’re like, I’ve already been there, I’ve done it. If we’re looking at it from a biblical perspective, right? It’s getting the knowledge, the understanding, and the wisdom to be able to apply it. Well, you can get all the knowledge and you can sort of understand how it works, but, and those business shops, workshops, actually help to be able to acquire those. But then that next step, if you want to take that next step, it is that implementation. And that’s what your team is able to provide. They’re kind of going line by line. Marketing, you know, we’ll help you with your marketing, your website, your print pieces, all those items. How helpful was that during that time in your life to know that you had a team that could do the website, the photography, the videography, all of the marketing things in one point of contact as opposed to having to run around and look for other designers? It was amazing. It was amazing just to be able to come to you. You are my point of contact or another coach is my point of contact and that’s my POC if you use it from a military term. But my point of contact was you. If I needed something, you were on it. Every week, those weekly one hour meetings, it was like, hey, I need this to get done. In fact, with you, a lot of the times, you were able to do it right there on the spot. Like, well, let’s get that fixed right now. So it was amazing. Now the core repeatable actionable processes, I call it the CRAP, core repeatable actionable processes. What? Core repeatable actionable processes. A lot of entrepreneurs that aren’t successful struggle to bore down and they struggle with boredom. They go, ah, it’s the same thing every week. Oh man. You know, they want a new idea, a new shiny thing. A lot of men do that with their wives, looking for new girlfriends, that’s not a move. A lot of people do that with new cars, always looking for a new car, always looking for a new book to buy. They buy the book, they don’t read the book, they just buy books. A lot of people are always looking for a new car smell, a new thing. Can you talk about the importance of having that core repeatable, actionable processes cemented and gone over every day, just the core repeatable, actionable process, maybe the value of that? You don’t like it. So that’s the reason the acronym is great, it’s CRAP. Right, it’s like, you’re just kind of going through it, it’s like, I don’t like to do this, I don’t like to do this. But the amazing thing is people, if you’re listening to this, is be diligent in the crap. Be diligent in the crap. Just keep pushing through, keep pushing through. I promise you, if you do what Clay’s team tells you to do, it works, it works. It will, it’s just, it sounds insane. It sounds like it won’t work. It sounds like a get rich quick scheme. It sounds like all these things. But doing the crap actually brings progression and growth. I’ll give you the final word there for anybody out there that’s thinking about filling out the form, coming to a conference, scheduling a one-on-one consultation. We don’t want to waste anybody’s time out there who’s not a good fit, nor do we want anybody who is a good fit to be turned away. What’s the final word you might say to anybody out there that’s contemplating becoming one of our 160 clients by scheduling a one-on-one consultation or coming to an in-person workshop? If you’re sitting on the fence, if you’re really thinking about it, I would tell you definitely 100% come to a workshop. The workshops are priceless. If you need that kick in the tail and you’re like, man, I say I’m going to do this. And you’re, you’re, you’re that, uh, that, that, that hopeful person. That’s just like, I want to do this. I want to make this happen. Uh, Clay’s team can actually take you to that next level. And if you’re setting, just thinking about it, just do it. Just do it. Give it a shot. I, I believe that there’s no contract. There’s, there’s nothing. I mean, there’s no reason for you not to give it a shot. Uh, I mean, that’s the amazing thing about it. You have everything in-house right there for you. A marketing team, a coaching team, individuals that are there to help you, even Clay’s network and stuff like that. And it’s just, it’s priceless. And if you’re just thinking about it, go for it. Just do it. Now you and your wife are attending some kind of ministry conference this weekend, which is the whole purpose of growing a business is to create time, freedom, and financial freedom. So I don’t want to get you in the proverbial doghouse there. So my final question I have here before I let you go is talk about the time freedom and the financial freedom of just knowing that you have the ability financially to be able to take your wife to a workshop like the one you’re going to and you don’t have to worry about the money. It’s amazing. I mean, it’s just, it’s amazing to be able to not have to worry about that and actually be able to go to sleep at night. And at the beginning, Clay, you may know this and I know the listeners won’t. I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have anything. I had zero dollars coming in. And this was right before COVID. So you can imagine really, it was a leap of faith for me. I joined that program and I’ve known you for years, but I joined that program before COVID. And then I don’t know if you remember my text messages I was texting you, I was like, Clay, I’m really freaking out here with all the COVID stuff. And you’re like, just take it easy. And then you guys kind of, you coached me along that and I am so appreciative of that. Just so appreciative of that. Yeah, I think you got a kind of a friendship with Eric Trump out of the deal too. Eric actually reached out and made sure that you were invited to Laura’s birthday. That’s a real thing. Yes. Right? I mean, that’s wild. I would have never guessed that. I would have never guessed. I mean, seriously, he calls me and goes, hey, is your guy Derek coming? I said, Derek? He goes, my guy, Derek. I love Derek. Is Derek coming to Laura’s party? We gotta get Derek at the party. So that was kind of fun too. So Derek, Cissy, I really appreciate you. I appreciate all you’ve done in terms of putting forth the effort. If we’re out there teaching people what to do and they don’t implement the proven success systems, it doesn’t work. You’re a diligent doer. And I wish you the best in all the endeavors you’re doing right now. And we’ll talk to you soon. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Take care. Well, Thrive Nation, on today’s show, we’re joined by a longtime client who’s having massive success. And before we introduce him to you, I want to ask you, what is the purpose of growing a business? What really is the purpose? I mean, why would you, as a sane, rational person with a sound mind, why would you want to open up a business? Is it because you want to work more than the average person? Is it because you like the idea of daily adversity? Is it because you are fascinated by managing lots of employees and dealing with the things that come with that? Is it because you like doing excessive amounts of legal work? Is it because you’re a big fan of making checklists? Is it because you want to wake up early? Is it because you want to be the guy at every event that carries a to-do list and a calendar? No, I think the purpose of starting a business is to create time and financial freedom. In fact, I just talked to a young man today who has achieved massive time, freedom and financial freedom. We just had a business workshop this past weekend and he was telling me how the workshops have completely changed his life. And on part two of today’s show, I’m going to introduce you to an actual success story, a person that attends our business workshops whose life has completely changed as a result of diligently implementing the systems and processes that we teach right here at the Thrive Time Show. But on part one of today’s show, I’m going to introduce you to somebody who’s taken these processes and systems that they’ve learned, and they’ve built it into a very successful company called WindowNinjas.com. And they’ve refined the systems more and more, more checklists, more processes. So it’s a very finely tuned vehicle. And they’re now to a point where they’re franchising the business, which means that you can now buy their business model. You can essentially rent the business model from them. You can pay them a small percentage of your revenue to use their system. It really is a great system. It’s been working well. There’s many locations all over the country. Now, without any further ado, the founder of Window Ninjas, Gabe Salinas. Welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? I’m doing great, Clay. Thanks for having me. Gabe, tell us about your company, Window Ninjas. I’m going to pull it up on the screen so people can see the actual website. But tell us about Window Ninjas. How long has Window Ninjas been around there, sir? We started Window Ninjas almost six years ago. And we are a window and pressure cleaning company. We also clean gutters and dry vents and chimneys and things like that. We’re basically a service provider for residential and commercial property owners or managers. So I want to ask you this question here. I’m going to ask you five questions. I want to get your thoughts. If a business doesn’t exist to create time freedom for the owner, if a business doesn’t exist to create both time freedom and financial freedom for the owner, what are your thoughts of businesses like that? Where the business exists and it doesn’t create time freedom or financial freedom for the owner? Well, that tells me that there’s a problem. And I think the top three reasons why most people should or want to get into business is because they do want financial freedom. They do want time freedom, but they also are there to solve a problem, whether it’s theirs or the consumer’s problem. So you got to have those three. The first has got to be your time freedom and your financial freedom. That’s your individual goal, right? That’s why you want to get into business. And then you’ve got to figure out what the problem is for the people that you’re going to serve. So if I’m listening today to today’s show and I go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash millionaire, if you’re listening out there today, folks, you just go Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash millionaire. You can download a free copy of my newest book called How to Become Sustainably Rich. It’s a millionaire’s guide, how to become sustainably rich. And if you go to page 152, you can download it for free. And there you’re gonna find a quote from Napoleon Hill, the bestselling author of Think and Grow Rich. One of the most, one of the top selling self-help books of all time. And it reads here, if you have no major purpose, you are drifting towards certain failure. So what would you say to somebody out there that’s going, you know, I’ve always wanted to be self-employed, but I’ve never really thought about, I’ve never really been able to find the right niche for me. I don’t really have a certain niche that I’m passionate about yet, but I do want to create time freedom and financial freedom, and I do want to solve problems for people in exchange for the compensation that I seek. Why do you think a windowed ninjas is a good opportunity for somebody out there? Well, because it gives you the opportunity to work in the business, work on the business and solve people’s problems. A lot of our owners and area managers, they actually came in from physically doing the work. They came in and got a job or an opportunity here at one of our locations and they worked their way through the physicality of doing actual services and they found out, hey man, this is pretty interesting, right? It’s not a hard job. I get to meet a lot of great people every single day and I’m helping them because I’m solving their problem and I’m also putting a lot of time and energy in this which is giving me some sort of time freedom and financial freedom as well. And those guys that have really thrived in that atmosphere and realized, wow, man, I could really do this, this isn’t that hard and I’m really making an impact on other people’s lives, I could be a great business owner in this realm that we’re in right now. And then there’s a lot of other people out there in the world that, man, they don’t want to pick up garbage, they don’t want to be going out and doing the little pooper-scooper businesses that are out there. They want to do something where they can interact with people and they want to have that time freedom and that financial freedom. And Window Ninjas is a great opportunity for them to be able to achieve those things. I probably don’t talk about it enough on this show, but you know clients like you, it’s such a great opportunity to serve you guys and watch your businesses boom, and it’s been fun over these past three years to watch your company grow. But what are some of the fruits of your labor that you’ve been able to enjoy now that you’ve created a company that has scaled and that now does create financial freedom and time freedom? What are some of the fruits of your labor that you’ve been able to enjoy that you wouldn’t be able to enjoy if you hadn’t built Window Ninjas to the point where it produced the time freedom and financial freedom that you now enjoy? Clay, if I hadn’t taken the step to do my own thing, I wouldn’t have been able to spend the last year of my youngest son’s senior year in high school traveling and spending time with him and watching him play lacrosse or going and visiting him at these different locations where he’s playing lacrosse or running cross country. And the same thing goes with my older son. I wouldn’t have been able to spend as much time with the grandson that we have or even my older son in the business as well. Me and my wife, we spend a lot more time together one on one, whether it’s taking a light vacation or going to grab a lunch or whatever the case may be. But we have the time, freedom and the flexibility to do that now because we worked so hard in the beginning to gain those things. And as I reflect back on the last six years, especially the last three, man, it’s been awesome. I mean, it’s really been great. And business owners get that work hard and do all the diligent work that needs to be done in the beginning, man, they get to enjoy all of it. And so whether you’re doing it with me or maybe one of your businesses or one of the other franchise like TipTut, man, I mean, dude, the time freedom and the financial freedom, and mostly the time freedom is just awesome. You know, now you have people that think becoming successful is just such a distant future from where they’re at today. So let me give you an example. There’s one wonderful client we’re working with right now called Weimer Works. And Weimer Works, it’s a pool cleaning company. And he came to a conference. He’s not looking to franchise. He’s not looking to license. He just wanted to build a successful company. And he came to a conference and he really didn’t know how to optimize a website. He didn’t know how to do branding, didn’t know how to do marketing, didn’t know how to do sales, didn’t know how to do customer service, didn’t know how to do the accounting, didn’t know how to do, basically didn’t know how to run a business, but he did know how to clean and maintain pools. And so we’ve helped him to scale his business out. Now his business is booming and it continues to grow. However, you’re somebody who’s, you know, six years ahead, seven years ahead, because you’ve been refining your business for many, many years. And we’ve had an opportunity to work with you during, during three of those years. But you now have everything fine tuned. And so whereas with Weimer, he’s still developing and tweaking and improving his systems. In your case, you have most of these systems refined now. So if somebody goes to windowninjas.com and they reach out to want to learn more about buying a franchise, I would argue they’re getting kind of like a jumpstart ahead. They’re almost like skipping ahead a few years. Tell us about how far ahead or how much farther down the path somebody starts out if they buy a window ninjas, as opposed to starting something from the ground up, like we see with Mr. Weimer here, where we’re helping him from the ground up to build something from scratch. Well, right off the bat, I mean, you have brand recognition. Our branding is really, really huge in the United States, especially in the Southeast where most of our locations are at. So you already got to step up on somebody that’s trying to brand their own individual name or a unique name that’s brand new and fresh out there in the market. So from a branding standpoint, I mean, you’ve really got like probably both legs up on the competition. And then as far as the scalability and the systems, I mean, why try to reinvent the wheel? That’s the benefit of franchising is you don’t have to go through all that trial and error process. You basically got a roadmap and it says, here you go, follow the roadmap to success and man you’re going to be there within the next two to three years and then you’re going to continue on with more financial freedom and a greater amount of time freedom. So I mean I’m a big proponent now of franchising whether it’s with me or any other people. If you’re trying to go at it alone, I mean you’re a one man journeyman for sure. And you’re gonna have to do a lot of heavy lifting in that first five years. Whereas with somebody like us, any type of franchise business, man, you’ve got the leg up on the competition and you’re probably gonna do it in less than three years, maybe a year and a half to really get recognized in your market and really be a dominating force. Now, before we go to part two of today’s show, we’re going to do a success story or a testimonial interview with Weimer so he can tell you, Russell Weimer, about his success story. If somebody does go to windowninjas.com and they’re curious about buying a Window Ninjas franchise, how much money does it cost to buy one and what are some of the things that you will provide for them as a franchisee? If somebody becomes a franchise owner, what are some of the things that you’ll provide for them? That’s a great question, Clay. So you got three things that you’re going to have to contend with and it’s a great thing to contend with because like I said, it’s going to give you a leg up on the competition. But a franchise fee at Window Ninjas is $49,500, just under 50K. You have to buy all the equipment and your trucks and things like that to get operational for your actual services that you’re going to provide. But what we do over here at Window Ninjas is we have a marketing team that markets for you. They handle your Google ads, they produce content for you, I mean they’re doing everything they can to get your name out there in your backyard. And then the other huge benefit that we have which most companies don’t have is an actual call center and our call center isn’t just a facilitator of needs, we’re not just picking up the phone and saying yes Jimmy we can do your window job on Tuesday and next week bye-bye or yeah we can get your price. We actually close deals, we sell deals, we’re prospecting, we’re doing everything a sales center should do so that the franchise owners don’t have to go out there and do a lot of heavy lifting on their own. They’ve got a real good partner in Window Ninjas over here on our sales side so that we can close deals, get prospects, get new leads and keep them in front of clients so that they can be way more successful. Now, what does the process look like of doing a consultation with you guys? How long does that initial call take? Walk us through that on a practical level. Somebody fills out the form at windowninjas.com. What are the steps that immediately happen after they fill out that form? If they fill out that form, we’ll get an email, and then what we’ll do is we’ll reach out and we’ll set up a time to have a one-on-one. And that one-on-one, we’ll have a heart-to-heart conversation. What you’re looking for, what are your goals, where do you want to be in the next few years, why are you calling us over here at Window Ninjas, what piqued your interest. And we’ll probably have about a 30-minute phone call diving deep into what it is that you want to do and then offering up what we can help you with as far as those issues or problems or goals that you want to achieve are. And so, we just carry on the conversation after that. I’m going to pull this up real quick because I think this is powerful to start here. If you go here to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash millionaire, I recommend you start here. Okay. On page two of my book, I wrote here, mathematically speaking, if you want to become a millionaire by the age of 40 and you start working at age 20, you’ll need to save $136.98 per day, seven days a week. And I’m writing this book to teach you how to become a millionaire, but I’ll let you do your own math. So one, what do you want your net worth to be? Two, how many days are you willing to invest to become a multi-millionaire? Three, how much money do you plan on saving every day? Four, what problems do you plan on solving in exchange for the millions that you plan on earning? Five, how much profit do you plan on earning per service or per product that you offer? How much money per product or service that you offer? Six, how many products or services do you need to sell to your ideal and likely buyer to achieve your goals? Seven, what will you do with your time once you’ve achieved financial freedom? Eight, how many hours per week are you willing to work in exchange for the money that you wish to earn? And if you sit down and answer those questions first, then you have to pick the path. So the path that I would recommend for you, and I’m just gonna pull up some examples real quick, path number one, I highly recommend you go to windowninjas.com, you check it out, or you look into a franchise. And there’s a couple options I can tell you about. I think Window Ninjas is one of the best in terms of the amount of time it takes to learn how to become a franchisee is dramatically less than other franchises that I’m, many other franchises that I’m aware of. So let me just give you the benefits here of these different franchises. If you go to windowninjas.com, how long does the training process take there, Gabe? If somebody buys a franchise, how long does it take to become a Window Ninjas guy? You can be up and running within two weeks. The training is pretty simple. We’re really hands on and the training continues to go even as you get back into your own location and are working. The cool thing is with what we do, once we train you how to do it, it’s just kind of a hey, repetitive, repetitive, repetitive. The more you do it, the better you get, the more efficient you get and the faster you become like really, really, really proficient. But within two weeks, you’re up and running cleaning glass. If these guys decide to take the high-rise option, there is an addendum for that. There’s an additional two weeks of training and we do that on site as well. So we come to your location and help you train on those kinds of facilities so that you’re really safe and you’re getting really comfortable in that. But all in all, Clay, anywhere from two to four weeks max, depending on which options you choose. And how much does it cost again in terms of the initial investment to buy a window ninjas? The initial franchise fee is $49,500 and then we have some additional fees that you’ll have to pay as far as like your trucks, your equipment, things of that nature. All in you’re looking anywhere from $105,000 to about $125,000. Got it. That’s including all of your equipment, your marketing materials, everything you need to be really up and running. And it’s a deal, Clay. I mean, I’ve talked to a lot of individual business owners that are doing certain services like ours, like window cleaning or pressure cleaning, and these guys have spent upwards of a hundred K just to basically produce a job for themselves, man. And I’m sitting there scratching my head saying, why not just come over and work with us And for that amount of money, man, we’ll 10x that in a matter of just a few years. Well, you know, this is a real thing. I want people to see this. If you go right now to buy a Floyd’s Barbershop, and I’m not dogging Floyd’s Barbershop, but if you wanted to buy a Floyd’s Barbershop franchise, I happen to own a haircut chain called Elephant in the Room, and so I’m aware of different competitors. But if you were going to buy a Floyd’s today, the startup cost is between $399,000 and $762,000. That’s a lot of haircuts. Yeah, it’s a lot of haircuts. They don’t even want to work with you. They don’t want to discuss the idea of buying a franchise unless you’re- What are they charging, $100 a haircut? Well, I’ll tell you this. You have to have a multi-million dollar net worth, you’d have over a million dollar net worth to even apply to buy a Floyd’s. And so I would just tell you this, I mean there’s a lot of brands out there, people don’t think about it, but they’re saying right now to buy a Floyd’s, a candidate has to have at least a 1.5 million dollar net worth or $500,000 of liquidity to even look at buying a Floyd’s, okay? So you compare that to Window Ninja’s. Ninjas. Another opportunity is Oxifresh. There’s over 515 locations open of Oxifresh, so it’s harder to find an available territory from time to time. How many locations do you have open for Window Ninjas right now? Well, if we were going on, how many do we have open? I mean, if we’re going on the Oxifresh, I mean, we currently operate in 13 locations across four states. And the cool thing is, is within each some of those locations, some of those locations are really big. Some of those locations like, let’s say, a Raleigh, North Carolina, or a Miami, Florida, they can support as many as five franchisees in those markets just because they’re so large. And we base our markets on 120,000 single family homes, and that includes all the commercial facilities that are involved within that region as well. And then the final opportunity, folks, I’ll explain to you here or just bring up to your attention is Tip Top K9 is a dog training franchise. And I’ve worked with these guys to help them grow their initial location and open up. I think there’s 17 or 18 franchise locations open now. And the thing about a Tip Top K9 is you have to like dogs in order to become a dog trainer. You know, this just in, you have to like dogs. And it requires six weeks of in-person training. So those are the options that I’m just exposing you to today, folks. There’s many other opportunities out there. But if you’ve got an extra million and a half dollars laying around, by all means, check out a Floyd’s. If you like dogs, go to tiptopcanine.com. If you’re looking for a carpet cleaning franchise and there’s one available, check out oxyfresh.com and if you’re looking for a place with a lot of availabilities an option with a lot of availabilities that’s very affordable to get into with less than a month of training and we’re talking two weeks of training and you’re in the game that’s windowninjas.com. Gabe I’ll give you the final word for all our listeners out there before we get into the Russell Weimer success story. Well I do appreciate you having me today and I appreciate you letting us talk about Window Ninjas. Anybody that’s out there that’s looking for an opportunity on an up and coming and a really fast growing company, I highly suggest going to our website, kind of like what Clay was showing you. Get on our website, schedule a consultation. I’ll get on the phone with you and we’ll talk about your dreams, your hopes, your desires, what it is that you want to achieve, and how we can make your goals and dreams a reality with a Window Ninjas opportunity. Gabe Salinas, thank you so much, brother. Have a great rest of your day. Thanks, Clay. You do the same, bud. Bye. Well, Thrive Nation, on today’s show, we have a wonderful success story. This particular listener actually has been to a workshop and they heard how to grow their business. They became a one-on-one consulting client, and now their business is absolutely growing, not because they heard what to do, but because they’re implementing the proven systems and processes in their actual business. And now, without any further ado, Russell Weimer, welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? I’m doing excellent. How are you doing, Clayton? Well, I’m fired up to have you here. Now, for a lot of people that are wondering, is this man a hologram or is he a real person? Tell us, what’s your website and what’s the name of your company, sir? The website’s WeimerWorks.com and the name of the company is simply Weimer Works Full Service and Repair. Now, since you became a one-on-one coaching client, I mean, we do charge clients a flat rate of $1,700 a month, and we do the photography and the videography and the web and the search engine and the branding and help you with the accounting and the numbers and the tracking sheets and the online ads. What kind of growth have you had since you became a one-on-one coaching client? Well, I think I’ve gone, when I first started back not even a year ago, when we really started getting down in the dirt with this, I had about six consistent customers and now I’m about shy of 60 customers. And that’s been pulling in going from 1250 a month all the way up to 12,500 a month, just in just regular service calls. So it’s been overloading my plate to say the least. Now, you know, one thing we do is we we’re fastidious about making sure that you’re tracking the numbers. And so I view businesses, you know, half of businesses is offense, it’s marketing, it’s branding, it’s advertising, it’s division. Then the other half is accounting and legal and systems and that kind of thing. Right now, how would you describe how the experience has been for you thus far? Because I know at first we put a lot of emphasis on, let’s get the website up, let’s get the online ads going. Kind of describe what the experience has been like so far. So far, I would say when I decided to jump out on my own and do my own thing, never ran a business in my life. I have a family, so I was very kind of, I guess you would say apprehensive to do it on my own. And I know I needed some guidance to really give me some concrete, actionable actions I can take and go do, and then I know it’s gonna work. And that’s why whenever I signed up with you guys, it’s been kind of a, I guess, very inspirational, but very confident that I know I’m doing the right thing, because anytime I’ve ever questioned something, it’s always gone back to the core plan, what we’re sticking to, getting the reviews, getting the content on the website, and just sticking to it, and the leads come in. And now to the point where, A, I’m making more money than I’ve ever made and it won’t stop and I can’t stop. I’m in a completely different area than I was nine months ago when I first started doing business with you guys and it’s awesome. It’s a very, not wild, but very exciting, very rewarding ride so far. And it just, I don’t see an end to it. And that’s the thing that gets me kind of, when I was at one of your workshops recently, is that feeling of being overwhelmed is the feeling that I got to keep because that’s the motivation. That’s the growth of the company happening. And it just doesn’t stop. You know, I started my first business out of my dorm room. And, you know, I had this vision to grow America’s largest wedding entertainment company. I ultimately did that at a company called DJConnection.com. And I grew that company huge before I sold it years ago. And it helped me having certain mentors in my life. You know, so for right now I pay an accountant every month about three grand a month, every single month to make sure that my numbers aren’t drifting. I pay an attorney several thousand dollars a month every single month, and I’ve worked with these same people for years and years, and most of our consulting clients are with us for six years or longer. Could you maybe describe for anybody out there that’s thinking about becoming a client, what that’s like to have a team helping you? Because I know every month, I don’t have to look for a new accountant. I’m not looking for a new attorney. I have these people that are advising me down the path that I’ve chosen to go down. Could you maybe describe for everybody out there that’s thinking about becoming a client, what it’s like knowing that you have an entire team helping you? It’s extremely stress relieving. Knowing me, myself, not knowing anything really how to make a website, how to even do the nuanced things of the updated software and things just to make a cell phone compatible and rank higher on the search engines. Having a team behind me and me just be able to have questions answered and knowing that, hey, if I need something taken care of on the website, it’s gonna get taken care of. And I don’t have to think about those things and worry about things or waste my time really with things I don’t have time to think about, I can just spend my time working on and in my business, knowing that I’ve got a confident team behind me that’s going to be able to give me the best looking website that I can ask for right now, because I think I don’t even know how to make it look better because I’ve never made one before, but I’m sure if I need anything critiquing on it, I have a team there that, hey, I want this picture there, or hey, I want to add these, I want to add some content like this. Y’all can change it, and I don’t have to think about those things. And it just takes the stress level away from me. And then not only that, having a mentor to keep me when I questioned myself, to have you there to just, no, stay on course, keep at it, keep getting reviews, has really bolstered me and strengthened me to keep on course. And just, it’s very, you know, it’s just stress relieving is the best way I could put it. Is I just almost don’t have to worry or think about those things that can be overwhelming when you’re first getting into this. You know, one of the things in the Bible, the Bible tells us 365 times about not giving in to the spirit of fear. In the book of Revelation, God continues to say, let them that have ears to hear. And then it’s very repetitive. The Bible and God are very repetitive. And I find that success is very repetitive. You have to do the same things that work. In a lot of self-help books, they say, insanity is doing the same thing over and over. Well, I think, though, that success, and I know that success requires the implementation of proven processes over and over and over, doing the same thing that works over and over. Quick trip gas stations provide great service week after week, day after day. Starbucks, as much as I don’t agree with the culture, Starbucks provides great coffee every single day. Can you maybe explain that nature of having somebody that’s pushing you to do some of those maybe stupid, repetitive tasks over and over? Because I know that the addiction to new ideas is a problem that I see a lot of entrepreneurs have. They jump from one idea to the next idea to the next idea, never gaining traction. What’s it like having somebody in your life pushing you to do those repetitive tasks over and over? It’s very, basically it’s kind of bolstering your confidence a little bit and that you don’t have, like you said, you don’t have to have this new idea and I can give the perfect example of I asked you, I was like, hey, you know, I didn’t consult you about it. I just went and signed up for it and it was the Yelp. You gave me this spiel about Yelp and I was like, I think I’m going to give it a try. And sure enough, I do it. I ended up spending about $500. I got zero leads off of it and it was a lot of wasted time and money. And I, I ended up kind of eating, you know, some humble pie coming back to you and telling you, yeah, I got off of that and should have just listened to you. And having you there kind of told me, I was like, Hey, I don’t need to go off and try to do market ideas because I’m paying a coach, I’m paying Thrive to do those things for me. I don’t need to second guess it, it came back on me tenfold where I lose out. It was a waste of time. So having the coach there to kind of reassert himself that this is why it works and you need to keep at it. And Amir, there was even another example I could give you. I was looking down the line at doom and gloom, something about the future and money and economy and you didn’t sit there and feed into it. You just said, I can tell you one thing is we got to just keep at it. You’ve got work to do. We’ve got to keep getting the reviews and this is how it’s going to work. And then unless you don’t, I’d tell you the last thing I thought about the last time I thought about pinning doom was then. Because I just, I kept thinking about what needed to be done and that was getting the reviews, getting the content and simply getting my business to grow. And I tell you, I haven’t thought about it since then. And it’s just, you got to keep rolling and keep moving. Now, final two questions I have for you. You provide a pool cleaning service, pool maintenance service. Tell us, what market area do you service for any of our listeners out there that may want to look into doing business with you? Yeah, we service a pretty wide range. We’re going to be pretty much everything west of Dallas. So all the way from Trophy Club, Keller, Fort Worth, all the way down to Arlington, Burleson, and all the way out to Weatherford. So pretty much everything east of Dallas, we’re going to have you covered and get you taken care of. Now, what would you say for anybody out there that’s on the fence, they’re thinking about going to Thrivetimeshow.com and scheduling a free consultation or attending one of our in-person workshops, what would you say to them? I would say don’t hesitate. Do it. It really will, it is going to change your life and for the better. It’s not for the faint of heart. It is hard work, but you know you’re going in the right direction and you know you have a whole team, group of people behind you to keep you going in that direction. And I wouldn’t have, wouldn’t hesitate because if the second you sign on, you’re going to experience a whole nother level of life you haven’t yet. Now, how did you originally hear about the Thrive Time Show and the one-on-one business coaching and the conferences that we provide? Yeah, it actually goes back to about a year, almost two years ago now, that when I heard you filling in on a, it was the warm room with Owen Schwarrior, and you were filling in, and I was just getting fired up off of your energy, I was like, I gotta look into this guy. At first I thought you were a preacher, honestly. I looked up and I was like, oh my gosh, this guy is a godsend because he’s right up my alley because you’re all about entrepreneurship. And that was where I was going, that was the direction. And lo and behold, you’re kind of right up the alley in a lot of the ways I think and other things. So it just kind of worked out to where I had to get up there and experience it myself. Now you actually, I think filled out a form. What was your first action step that you took before you attended the conference and ultimately became a client? Yeah, well, listening to one of your podcasts, you said, hey, if you want to give this a try, you’re encouraged to come up and check out the workshop. So I went on your website, filled out the little form, and I think within less than five minutes, I had a phone call with a very nice young lady, and she gave me the full download. And before I could even get off, she discounted the amount I had to pay. For some reason, I don’t know why, but she made it to where I couldn’t say no. It just made it too easy to get up there and come experience the workshop. Now, how would you describe the in-person workshop for anybody out there that hasn’t been to a workshop before? Uh, it’s very, uh, if you’re not a kind of a, if you’re coy, I’m just gonna say, it’s gonna be kind of in your face, but it’s very, very motivating, is the best word I could give it. It’s just very motivating, and it kind of pulls you out of your little shell and kind of gets you to open up a little bit. And that’s the best way I can describe it, is very motivating. Now, what would you say to anybody out there who’s thinking about spending $500 on a Yelp ad this month? Don’t, don’t do it. Oh Don’t wait you’re gonna waste your time money, and you’re not you’re gonna pretend They’ll give you pretend click leads, but it’s all fake at the end of the day I’ll get folks check out Weimer works calm. That’s Weimer works calm an incredible service I’ll put a link on today’s show notes folks. You can check it out. That’s Weimer works calm Russell Weimer It’s great to serve you great to work with you sir, and we’ll talk to you next week. Excellent, thank you, Clay. You have a good one. Well, ladies and gentlemen, on today’s show, we’re interviewing an entrepreneur who is kind, who is diligent, who is the kind of person you’d want to hang out with. And I think if you’re out there today, we’d understand that money is just a magnifier. Money just makes you more of who you are. And I hear nothing but great things about today’s guest and longtime client. Myron, welcome on to The Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? Hey, thanks. I’m doing good. Hey, so real quick, let’s get into your background a little bit here. How did you first hear about us? How long ago was that when we first started coaching or working with you? So that was, it had to have been about six, six and a half years ago. Steve Currington, one of you guys is a long-time client as well. He actually recommended me to you guys about six years ago, and I went to one of your conferences, and I was blown away by what I seen at the conference and I had to join. Now someone wants to verify you’re a real person and also it might turn into a couple deals for you. What’s your website so people can pull this up and verify you’re not a hologram? Yeah, check us out, whitegloveautotulsa.com. Whitegloveautotulsa.com, so let me pull it up here, whitegloveautotulsa.com. And with White Glove Auto, what are all the services that you guys provide at this point? So the services that we provide right now are services like paint protection film for your vehicle to protect its paint, ceramic coating for your paint. It’s another form of paint protection. We do window tinning, and then we do vinyl wraps. So you guys at White Glove Auto, I mean, you guys do quite a few services. Also, these mics I have right here, you guys auto-wrap these microphones. Is that accurate, sir? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we printed out that wrap ourself and we wrap those. That’s awesome. So that’s again, folks, that’s White Glove Auto. Now, as far as growth, since we’ve had the opportunity to serve you, what kind of growth have you seen over these past six and a half years? So, I mean, that’s the crazy thing. So our growth has been absolutely insane. I averaged it up over the last eight years I’ve been in business. We’ve averaged about a 52% growth year over year, and that is just insane. So you’ve grown, if you had to go back six and a half years from when we started with you to now, do you know what that total growth percentage would be? Are you like five times larger or 10 times larger? Oh, man. I mean… 50% of a big number is, you know, telling me. I mean, when I first started with you guys, I think I had just done $100,000 for the whole year. This year, I’m probably going to do $2.1 million. Wow. So you guys are up 20 times. Yeah. OK. Now, for anybody out there that hasn’t worked with a business consultant, I always tell people what we do is very analogous to what a personal trainer does for fitness. And I would also say that what you guys do at White Glove Auto is very similar to what a personal trainer does, but you do it for autos, for automobiles. So if you’re out there today and you want to auto wrap a vehicle, I guess you could get a manual about it, and I guess you could get all the equipment, and I guess that you could devote years, usually years, to learn the craft and master it and then invest in the physical building to auto wrap your own vehicles. Or you could go to an expert. Can you kind of explain what it’s like working with a business coaching program on a week-in, week-out basis. Yeah, so working with the business coaching program is phenomenal. It’s something that I’m very glad that I’ve done. Every week, meeting with you guys, for instance, it’s just nice to know updates on my SEO and how things are going. Anytime I have questions about things I might be stuck on, and being able to have those questions answered has just been great. And with the meetings, I think one of the things that I think is very important, whether you have a business or you have a business coach, you need to have certain core repeatable, actionable processes that you go every week so you don’t drift. There are certain core repeatable, actionable processes. Could you talk about maybe how those meetings have helped you to make sure that you’re not drifting and that you, your organization is continuing to knock out those core repeatable, actionable processes? Yeah, absolutely. So that’s one of the biggest things I learned from you guys’ meetings is, you know, doing checklists and processes and just making sure I’m doing the same thing every day. And when I go to my meetings, you know, my coach is always following up with me, making sure I’m doing my action items. And if I’m not, he kind of gets a little upset with me, so it keeps me on track. But yeah, learning those processes has definitely been a huge help for us as well. Can you maybe peel back the onion and maybe share a couple core repeatable actionable processes that you have to do every week that might seem kind of mind-numbing but that actually produce results? Yeah, so I mean this is something I do every week. I do it actually every day, and that’s finances. Going over my numbers and seeing my exact expenses and how much money is coming in, how much money is going out. I do that every single day for about an hour, hour and a half a day. And it’s mind-numbing, but it’s something I’ve got to do, and that’s something I learned in Thrive as well, is making sure you’re in top of your numbers. And my understanding is you now are the owner of a Lamborghini. Is this an accurate thing? Did you just buy a Lamborghini? I did just buy a Lamborghini, and it delivers today. And what does it look like or what kind for people out there that don’t know what it is? Can you maybe tell me what kind of Lamborghini is it? Yeah, it’s a 2020 Lamborghini Huracán Evo. It’s actually like a purple color so by a little of passive phase what the color is called. Yep, Huracán Evo. Evo, got it. I am not a car guy so I’m gonna just hack away here and see if I can find it. So this is kind of what it looks like, but yours is purple. Yep, exactly. It’s purple. So it’s not a convertible either. It’s actually the coupe, but that is pretty much what it looks like. And has this been on your wish list for a long time? It has been, yeah. It’s been on my wish list for a very long time. I can’t believe I’ve actually been able to buy a $300,000 car, but here I am. Now let’s talk about this for people out there that are thinking about coming to a workshop. You know, I always tell people, it’s $250 to come to a workshop or whatever price they want to pay. What can people expect if they come to a workshop? Man, when you come to a workshop, I mean, even though it’s, you know, 250 bucks or, you know, whatever you spend, you’re gonna get a ton of value out of that. Whenever I go to a workshop that you guys have, I always learn something new every time I go. There’s a bunch of information, a bunch of questions that get answered that maybe I didn’t know I had. So anyway, it’s very, very helpful. And talk about website edits and graphic design and branding and print pieces. I think a lot of business owners, they have a consultant they hire and then the consultant they hire tells them, well, you need to go optimize your website or you need to go launch ads or you need to go look at your numbers, but they don’t actually sit down and help them with their numbers or help them with their website or help them, how has that helped you having a turnkey, one point of contact where every week when you meet with our coaching team, after that meeting, you’ve got a team that’s doing the photography, the videography, the web development, the search engine, and kind of helping you with those things behind the seats? Oh, it’s a huge help. So, I mean, if you guys were just telling me, hey, do this, do that, do that, and not giving me any type of actual coaching on how to do those processes, I probably wouldn’t do it because it would be a little too difficult. Maybe it’s a little overwhelming. So it’s definitely nice to have a lot of help on the back end from you guys. Now let’s talk about this idea. In business, there’s always a new idea. People like to bring up new ideas and obsess on new ideas and not execute the proven ideas. Can you maybe talk about that? Because I see a lot of wonderful entrepreneurs that reach out to us, they schedule 13-point assessment, and I find out that for 10 consecutive years, they’ve been hopping to the idea of the month, the idea of the week, the idea of the hour, and they’re always hopping from idea to idea, but they don’t actually get anything done. Can you maybe talk about how coaching kind of helps you stay on track with what works? Yeah, I think really the biggest thing is just having that coach there that’s behind you and every week, like I said, whenever you’re meeting with that coach, they’re just making sure that you’re staying on track. Again, having somebody who’s there and you knowing that they could get upset with you because you’re not staying on track and doing your action items is a huge help. If I didn’t have that person behind me helping push me, I don’t think some of this stuff would be getting done. Now, yeah, we charge $1,700 a month as of the time of the recording of today’s show. $1,700 a month, we operate at a 20% margin for what we do. We’re very clear about that. It’s $1,700 a month. It’s month to month, and it’s 20% margin. With your business model, you guys do auto wraps. If somebody out there is looking to auto wrap, let’s say, a truck or a car or a vehicle, what kind of… Do you… Has Andrew been able to help you be intentional about making sure that you’re not doing auto wraps where you lose money? Because I know a lot of people in your industry that I’ve met at conferences that do beautiful wraps, but they found a way to lose money on every transaction. Has Andrew kind of helped on that aspect to make sure that you’re profitable? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s the thing is, you know, there’s a lot of people out there, a lot of other people that do wraps, like you said, that are just afraid to charge what they want to charge. And one of the things that’s helped me, like from Andrew, is just helping me not be afraid to charge what I need to in order to be a profitable business. And I actually get a lot of hate, a lot of shade thrown my way for charging higher prices, but it’s what I got to do to run a profitable shop. Now, this is probably an awkward time to place that order, so I’ll put it on the agenda that we share. I need to get six more SM58 mics, you know the ones with the red, white, and blue? Yeah. It’s the red, white, and blue SM58 Shure mic that we have, and it’s just the three colors. I think the mic itself is blue, and then I think the handle is maybe red or something like that. Yeah. Sincerely, I wanted to order, I need to get six more of those from you. Yeah. So for me and for anybody out there that wants to order stuff like that from you, what’s the best way to do that? So if anybody wants to do any type of ordering like that, they can just give us a call at our office number, which is 918-806-2780, and we’re happy to help you. I mean, of course, our biggest thing is automotive. We can do automotive anytime, but we like doing little things like the mics or going out to actual properties and doing some jobs on site. We like doing a little bit of everything. So, you have to give us a call. I’m gonna pull this up so people can see what I’m talking about here. So this is the mic here. This is an SM58 mic. It’s the mic made by the Shure company. And this is the mic here. It’s blue on top. It’s got the white and the red handle there. That’s the SM58 mic. And you guys auto-wrap those. I’m gonna put that on your agenda with Andrew so you guys can talk about it. But you guys do auto wraps. I mean, you guys do mic wraps. Anything else you wrap that’s a common request right now that people are asking you about there, sir? You know, a common thing here recently has been refrigerators. You know, people wanna have their little man caves and put their cars in the garage and they wanna have their refrigerator wrapped with like car logos or whatever it is. The refrigerators, yeah, it’s kind of a weird thing. Refrigerator wrapping. That’s awesome. And again, final question I have here for you. What would you say for anybody out there thinking about scheduling a free one-on-one consultation by going to thrivetimeshow.com? Maybe they’re on the fence. We had a guy I talked to last week who’d been a listener for seven consecutive years, and he said, I don’t know what the deal was. I think I had a phobia of reaching out to us and in nine months, his company’s grown 57%. So in nine months, he’s grown his company by 57%. And on part two of today’s show, I’m going to introduce our listeners to this man, cause he’s doing really well. What would you say to anybody out there that’s thinking about scheduling a consultation, but they have yet to do so? Man, I say you’re making a mistake if you’re not reaching out ASAP. I mean, you’re just holding yourself back. Working with Thrive is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made for my company. I’ve been with them for six and a half years now. And it’s something I really, really recommend everybody do. Well, brother, I appreciate your time. I know you’re a busy guy. Thanks for carving out time for us again, folks. That website is whitegloveautotulsa.com. You can auto wrap a refrigerator. You can auto wrap a mic. You can auto wrap a Lamborghini, which now Myron now owns. So if you want to buy a Lamborghini from Myron, maybe he’ll sell you his money. He just bought it, but maybe he’ll sell you his new Lamborghini at a reasonable markup. We’ll see, folks. So you can buy a Lamborghini from Myron. You can buy an auto-wrapped refrigerator. You can buy an auto-wrapped microphone. You can buy all of those wonderful things at whitegloveautotulsa.com. Myron, thank you for carving out time for us. I really do appreciate you. No problem, man. Thank you. 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, Terminex, 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 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, you know, asking our customers for reviews and now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pessamon 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, 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. 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 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. 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 a success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive, we were basically stuck Really no new growth with our with our business And we were in a rut and we didn’t know 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 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, and 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 were 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 gonna take in order to really succeed. So, we just wanna 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. Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with like 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 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, graphic designers, and web developers. They run 160 companies every single week. Think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. In the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13 step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. I’ve seen guys from start-ups go from start-up 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. 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. That’s what I like him 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 you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that we became friends. My most impressive thing was when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and 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 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 his he doesn’t his highest desire was to do what’s right and anyways just just just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate. Anytime I’ve got 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 COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top Canine 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, right? 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 house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing. And this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen. 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 Thrivetime 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. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re gonna teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re gonna 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 you’re like oh But we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell at every workshop We teach you what you need to know there’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get rich quick, walk on hot coals product. It’s literally we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. owner 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 gonna be the best business workshop ever and we’re gonna 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. Good to see you. that high failure rate. They want to do that like bowling with bumper lanes. So you give us a call, reach out to us, we’ll call you, and then we’ll send you an FDD, look over that, read it, fall asleep to it, it’s very boring, and then we’ll book a discovery day and you come and you can spend a day or two with us, make sure that you actually like it, make sure that you’re training dogs for something that you want to do. So an FDD is a franchise disclosure document. It’s a federally regulated document that goes into all the nitty-gritty details of what the franchise agreement entails. So who would be a good fit to buy a Tip Top K9 would be somebody who loves dogs, who wants to work with dogs all day as their profession. You’ll make a lot of money, you’ll have a lot of fun, it’s very rewarding. And who would not be a good fit is a cat person. So the upfront cost for a Tip Top is $43,000. And a lot of people stay there generating doctor money, but on our disclosure, the numbers are anywhere from over a million dollars a year in dog training, what our Oklahoma City location did last year, to $25,000, $35,000 a month. To train and get trained by us for Tip Top Canine, to run your own Tip Top Canine, you would be with us for six weeks here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. So we’ve been married for seven years. Eight weeks. Eight years. So if you’re watching this video, you’re like, hey, maybe I want to be a dog trainer. Hey, that one sounds super amazing. Go to our website, tiptopcanada.com, click on the yellow franchising tab, fill out the form, and Rachel and I will give you a call. Our Oklahoma City location last year, they did over a million dollars. He’s been running that shop for three years before he was a youth pastor with zero sales experience, zero dog training experience before he ever met with us. So just call us, come spend a day with us, spend a couple days with us, make sure you like training dogs and own your own business. Well the biggest reason to buy a Tip Top K9 is so you own your own job and you own your own future and you don’t hate your life. You get an enjoyable job that brings a lot of income but is really rewarding. My name is Seth Flint and I had originally heard about Tip Top K9 through my old pastors who I worked for. They trained their great Pyrenees with Ryan and Tip Top K9. They did a phenomenal job and became really good friends with Ryan and Rachel. I was working at a local church and it was a great experience. I ended up leaving there and working with Ryan and Tip Top K9. The biggest thing that I really really enjoy about being self-employed is that I can create my own schedule. I have the ability to spend more time with my family, my wife, and my daughter. So my very favorite thing about training dogs with Tip Top K9 is that I get to work with the people. Obviously, I love working with dogs, but it’s just so rewarding to be able to train a dog that had serious issues, whether it’s behavioral or whatever, and seeing a transformation, taking that dog home, and mom and dad are literally in tears because of how happy they are with the training. If somebody is interested, I’d say don’t hesitate. Make sure you like dogs. Make sure that you enjoy working with people because we’re not just dog trainers. We are customer service people that help dogs. And so definitely, definitely don’t hesitate. Just come in and ask questions ask all the questions you have