Business Podcasts | The Specific Steps That You Need to Take to DRAMATICALLY Improve Your Sales + The Steve Currington Success Story

Get ready to enter the Thrive Time Show.

One of the biggest things we picked up when we picked up the Thrive15 team was an entire team. You want an SEO guy that knows things about search engine optimization? Got it. You got a website guy that’s built big websites like Garth Brooks’s website? Awesome. We have it. He’s coming in. If I had to pay for that, on my own outside of Thrive15, there’s just no way. For us, one of our most immediate needs when I got connected with Clay was technology. We had a website. I had a website in Tulsa, our other partner had a website in Colorado, and they did everything from doing a drone video, where they flew over all of our markets with a drone. They integrated that into our site. Every single thing that I think of, they do. We do a podcast. If I was going to produce my own podcast, I mean, that alone, just that alone would be what I pay Thrive, just for that.

But then if you add the fact that if I need a business card design, if I need a website built, if I need this, if I need that, I know what I would pay for that if I had to go à la carte. I feel guilty sometimes. I don’t probably write a big enough check for the value that I get. I think there’s a lot of entrepreneurs that have ideas, what they want to do with their business, and how they want to grow, and what market they want to be in, and how they can increase production, and do all this, but it’s not about having 4,000 ideas; it’s about having 12 and executing them 4,000 times. That’s the trick, in my opinion, and that’s where Thrive’s value comes in, I feel like. I have my own staff, my own… I don’t know, 20-person team, that when I need something, I just go to them, and it happens.

I’m going to beat all other competitors’ prices, or I’ll give you the mattress for free. How’s that sound? You look good. Let’s sell some mattresses. Sales for me, it’s what makes the world go round, and it’s my life. When I step out onto this showroom floor, it’s my time to shine. It’s my time to nominate. This is my Colosseum and I’m the gladiator. So, look out. Hey!

Oh, hi.

Hi [inaudible 00:02:46]. Nice to meet you.

Mary.

She will be taking care today. Mary?

Yes. Hi.

What a great name. That’s beautiful and you are such a vision.

Oh, okay.

Oh, Mary, what do I got to do to get you in into bed today? Really, I just want to serve the people. I want to use my knowledge to better mankind. This is a hundred percent memory foam mattress. Okay, with a circle knit top. It comes from our King Arthur collection and we call it Excalibur. Hop on up, Mary.

Oh, no, that’s not necessary.

A lot of these guys out there, they’re dishonest, but I believe in truth in sales, this is a limited edition, which means it’s a collector’s item, which means that it will appreciate and value. So really think of this mattress as an investment into your financial future. I just love making people smile. If at the end of the day I’ve made at least one customer smile, then I’ve done my job. I’ve succeeded. I need them to buy something as well, of course, because they don’t pay me for smiles. But I would be rich if they did.

You are now entering the Dojo of Mojo and the Thrive Time Show.

Dude, you are bringing the hot sauce, the [inaudible 00:04:39].

I mean, I’m going down the aisle of salsas. There’s mild.

Mild?

There’s for meat, there’s extra mild, there’s big and kind of chunky. You get chunky and smooth.

Oof.

But as I’m walking down that salsa aisle, the stuff you’re laying down right now, that’s going to be in the extra spicy. Hot, hot sauce.

I’ve recently discovered my genre. It’s street vendors playing brass music with hip hop lyrics. That’s my move.

It makes so much sense.

It fits me.

A street vendor’s a business guy.

Right.

And a guy out on the street doing that. I mean, he’s got to use a little hat out there, a bucket getting money, right. They’re both entrepreneurs mixed together.

You’re mixing, you were a DJ. I’m going to, for the conference we have here, probably the one in June or April, we’ll see, but I think I’m going to have an actual marching band, like a drum line out there on Saturday.

Nice.

It’s the right mojo. See doesn’t the mojo, just doesn’t something just feel right about the live street performers with the brass music?

You touch on a very good point. And that’s also something that we teach at our workshop. And that is that music is very powerful in your business.

It is.

And so you’re absolutely correct. Music sets the atmosphere. Music gets people… Yeah, I remember my first job, I was 13 years old. I was washing dishes in a Mexican restaurant, [foreign language 00:05:53]. Wash those dishes. We had a jukebox in the back and I just kind of took it on myself… I mean, I just took over the jukebox. The jukebox was my territory.

Did you turn off the [foreign language 00:06:11]?

No. It had all kinds of music on there. But what I would do is I would go through and I would select all the Hispanic music.

You would do such clever songs as [inaudible 00:06:25].

That was one was a big hit. So I would do that. And the other one-timer was going, “Hey, the music sounds good. Who’s in charge of the jukebox?” And there everybody kind of shrugs their shoulders and goes, “I think a dishwasher is.” So he came back there and he goes… Yep, I’m 13, I’m back there washing my dishes and he goes, “Man, great job with the jukebox.” I go, well, I figured this. If people are listening to Mexican music in a Mexican restaurant, it’s probably more likely to want to order another dish.

[foreign language 00:06:56].

You said you’d never been a DJ before.

Well…

You started as a DJ. [inaudible 00:07:04]. Speaking of music, Ricky Martin, Suavemente, Elvis Crespo. Let’s talk about installing tracking systems.

Exactly.

Now, tracking systems. Now here’s the thing, Dr. Z, as you’ve grown, Dr. Roberts on the associates, tell me if this has become-

Okay.

If what I’m saying has become true or if I’m just speculating.

Okay, fair enough.

At first, when you first advertise and you have a one-legged marketing stool, you’re only advertising with one piece of advertising.

Yes.

That was probably… Like, what was your first form of advertising, like day one?

It was the TV guide section of the local newspaper.

TV guide section.

And I did a little, it wasn’t a one eighth, it was smaller than that. Little corner.

One 16th?

Little corner. Yeah, probably about that [inaudible 00:07:45].

I’m searing my cornea just hearing it.

Well, I figured it was the one part of the paper that people would keep throughout the week because it had the weekly TV scheduling.

Smart.

And so it’d be sitting there on their table all week long.

He’s a wizard.

And the rest of the paper they’d chuck after-

So when Elite came in, you’d probably ask somebody, “Hey, how’d you hear about us?”

How’d you hear about us?

And because you only had one way you were marketing, you really only had probably three options. One, I drove by saw the sign.

Correct.

Two, a friend referred me or three, TV guide.

Bingo.

Did anybody ever say I drove by and couldn’t see the sign, so I came in?

Ooh, tricky.

You should make yours a sign.

I’d have to look back at my old notes. I’m not sure if they did or not.

A real fun factoid when you started your optometry clinic was the year 1998, I believe?

91.

91, okay. So 91, you know, you probably were listening to a little bit Asa Bass. I saw the sign. You probably had that in the background. So how’d you hear about us? Saw the sign? No, but seriously, you would ask people how they heard about you. And when the first time that someone said TV Guide, did it blow your mind?

Well, what I did was I made it kind of tricky. I made it like a coupon. So they’d have to cut it out and bring it in.

Oh, and did it blow your mind when they brought it in? Were you like, yes?

Full of moves.

Yes.

So then you did the next leg. So think of the next leg you did.

Technically, the Yellow Pages was probably the first one.

So Yellow Pages first.

Yellow Pages to be honest with you.

Second TV guide.

Second TV guide.

What was third?

Radio station.

So then you started tracking at a certain point, you don’t need to track, all you track is gross revenue and how much you’re spinning on ads. Because everyone starts saying, I saw your ads. I saw it on radio. I saw on TV guide. I saw it from a friend. I saw the sign. My person at church told me, I have a coupon.

And I realized at some point it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what brought them in because I was committed to having multiple legs and committed to spending the money on advertising.

But I would bet you at if we had 10 new business coaching clients we’re working with, let’s say we had 10.

Okay?

I would bet, yeah, I put this on the screen so you can see it. I bet you 90% of the business owners have never tracked their advertisement, ever. So this is a new business they just opened up in Owosso about eight weeks ago. And they have sold, see, look at that, $27,000. That’s a tiptop canine location in Owosso. That’s roughly, easily operating a 70% profit margin. Look at that dude.

I want to start training dogs.

I know, look at this, he only spent $233 and 21 cents on ads, and he brought in $5,963 of deposits and $27,000 of gross revenue on less than $300 of total ad spent.

And you know what, kids these days have it so easy. I mean, don’t you wish we had some of the availability to spend that kind of money?

It’s a lot easier now. It’s so much easier now.

It’s so much easier now.

It’s easy.

I was like, here’s the barrel. We’re going to show about three duck down here in this barrel and give you a gun. Get have at it.

I mean, marketing and growing a business today is significantly easier.

Significantly easier.

And we’re not saying that as people that now don’t own businesses. We’re saying that as people that currently do own them. I’m saying it’s gotten easier every year. Now here’s the deal. Peter Drucker, if he were here, the legendary management expert, and check on the show notes, I want to put his credentials up there so I don’t belabor it on the show today. But if you don’t know anything about management books, you’ll read Peter Drucker books. But he’s known as kind of like the father of management. He says, see, if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. I repeat. He says, if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Why is it?

Well, if you can’t measure it, then how do you know it’s getting better? You have to know it’s started here and it’s going to here.

We’re just going off of feel primarily. [inaudible 00:11:12]. I just wake up in the morning and say, how do I feel today? To me, I look at it like, dogs have four legs, right? Well, most of mine does. I had a dog one time, only had three. He was a good, good dog too. He’s a good dog. You can put a perm on a woman, but you can’t put one on a dog.

I tell you about that pig only had three legs?

These sort of altruisms are how I do my marketing.

Well, listen, I got to get pig story in.

I want to hear it.

I was traveling one time, stopped at a bed and breakfast, and it was at kind of a farm setting. And there’s a barn outback. And I was looking out the little bay window and a pig walks by with only three legs. And I looked at the farmer, the proprietor, and they were in the kitchen making the breakfast for all the people living there, staying there. And I said, “What is it? What’s up with that pig?” And they said, “Oh, that’s a special pig. My grandson was in the back barn and it cut on fire. And that pig went in there and got him and pulled him out and saved his life.”

Really?

I said, “Wow. Is that how he lost his leg? In the fire?” He goes, “Oh no. A pig that good. You don’t eat all at once.”

That is so good. That was so good, see, I’m going to merit it on that one for a week or two.

That was pretty good.

That’s a good pig.

Now I’m not going to try to one up you, but I am going to say, Bill Gates has a lot of things to say about tracking your numbers. And we come back from the break. Bill Gates, we’ll see if Bill Gates can outdo Dr. Z’s pig joke with some notable quotables that could potentially be life-changing, life-changing humor or life-changing notable quotables from Bill Gates? You decide. Stay tune to Thrive Time Show on your radio.

Attend the world’s best business workshop led by America’s number one business coach for free by subscribing on iTunes and leaving us an objective review. Claim your tickets by emailing us proof that you did it and your contact information to [email protected].

If I personally became a form of music, if a form of music was me, I think that that music type would be a street performing brass band. Because it’s like, it’s detailed, it’s tight, it’s succinct, but it’s kind of crazy.

It’s kind of crazy. And I tell you, that intro was really nice. And someone’s listening to that right now going, what’s the catch?

What’s the catch?

I mean, seriously, what’s the catch?

Well, let me walk you through this, Mr. Listener. Paul Hood is one of our advertisers. And so if you have been in Tulsa for any amount of time at all, you’ll know that Dr. Zoellner has faithfully advertised on radio well before our show went on the air. You see, our show’s been on the year on the air for about a year and a half. And he’s been advertising in Tulsa on the radio for 26 years. And so you advertise you see, rumor has it on radio, because it works.

Absolutely.

And Paul Hood hadn’t been a big advertiser before and he thought, he told me this. He said, “I would like to become the Dr. Zoellner of accounting.”

Cool.

And so he decided to start advertising. And it’s crazy how many business owners listen to this station. And so over time he said, I want to advertise more. I want to be a bigger part of it because so many people will ask us, “Hey, Mr. Thrive business coach, who do you recommend for accounting?” Because if you look at all the statistics that are out there, if you ask the average person, if you ask the average person, if you ask yourself, not that you’re average, but do I like my accountant?

Do I like my accountant?

On a scale of one to 10, if 10 is a very proactive accountant and one is very reactive, how proactive is your accountant?And most people, upon further review are not happy with the level of proactivity of their accountant. And so Paul said, in order for us to make a bigger impact and to make a win-win to help more people in Tulsa improve their businesses and to get in front of more clients, I would like to subsidize or sponsor the workshops. And so this is what happens. Paul is the one paying the money. There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

There you go.

So what you do is all you have to do is your part. So if you find Thrive Time Show on iTunes, all you have to do is do a Google search. Just search on Google for Thrive Time Show and the word iTunes. Once you find that at the time of this recording, I’m going to pull it up real quick here. So Chip, I’m going to do, I’m going to see how long it takes me. Here we go. I’m going to type in Thrive Time Show on iTunes. This is on Google and it came up here. I see it. All right now, I’m going to see it there. There’s 593 ratings as of the time of this recording.

Wow.

I’m going to go ahead and click the blue button here to view the show in iTunes. When I click that, then it’s going to have a little prompt that says, do you want to open iTunes? I say, yes.

Follow the blue.

And then what I have to do is I have to click the subscribe button, which is underneath our thumbnail so that we’re about 90 seconds in. Then I write an objective review and I email in proof that I did it. I email them proof that I actually wrote a review to [email protected]. And I send in my contact info,

Well, you got it up there. What’s it… 593 reviews? What’s our star score?

Our star score is pretty much five star.

Really?

Yeah.

Wow.

Right now, I mean, if you type in Thrive Times Show, and let me just type in one second.

I haven’t looked at it lately, so.

Yeah, let me just look right now. I’m going to beat you. If you pull it up, we have, as of today on Google, we have 347 people that have written reviews about our conferences. And we have one gentleman that wasn’t happy because he said that the hotel accommodations weren’t good. The only thing I could say is that I actually don’t… We don’t, as a program, we recommend that people would stay at the Renaissance Hotel. We have good relationship with them. We recommend you might stay at the Holiday Inn, at the aquarium.

Or the River Spirits.

River Spirit does a great job. The Marriott does a great job. The person did not ask us what we recommend, and they just booked something and they felt like we could have been more helpful in advising them as to where to stay. And so, that would be our one four star. So we have 346 5 star reviews so far.

Wow. Cool.

Things are going well at the Thrive Nation. We’d encourage you to join the conversation, attend the workshop, buy your tickets today @thrivetimesshow.com or get your tickets for free by leaving us objective reviews.

And the other thing that’s not a catch is there’s no upselling. There’s no, okay, for those who want the really the super package, you want the magic and the breakout session where we teach really, the fine art of the stuff, that’s an extra $2,700.

You get to meet minute behind the curtain.

And that’s why if you type in Thrive Time Show reviews into Google, you can see over 500 video reviews from real people on video explaining their experience. And you’re going to hear that time and time again that there was no upselling, there was no high pressuring. Now Z, Bill Gates has three notable quotables about knowing your numbers. I’m going to read them all in a row and I’m going to see if you can break them down. So here we go.

Break them down.

He says, know your numbers. Knowing your numbers is a fundamental precept of business. He goes on to say, “I’ve been struck again and again by how important measurement is to improving the human condition.” He says, “We all need people to give us feedback. That’s how we improve.” So see, I think he’s fairly passionate about us knowing our numbers. Why?

If you don’t look at your p and l on a regular basis, if you don’t know what your numbers are, if you don’t know what it costs to bring somebody in, if you don’t know what your profit margin is, if you don’t know how much it costs to make that widget, if you don’t know your numbers, you are… Picture this, it’s a windy day. You’ve got the kids loaded up, picnic basket, and you’re going to the marina to get on your brand new sailboat that you just bought. Except unbeknownst to you, they forgot to put a rudder on it. And you load up the family and you kick off from the dock and you go out there and you can’t control where you’re going.

That’s scary.

That’s scary.

Yeah, that’s what it is. If you don’t know your numbers, how can you make management decisions?

I hear people all the time say, I’m going to make up fort and volume. Volume works both ways though. I hear people that are literally, they lose money on every deal and they want to do more deals.

Yeah, exactly. Scott got the trucker that says, yeah, at least a thousand dollars on every run, what are you going to do? We’ll buy more trucks. [inaudible 00:19:37].

See, talk to the contractors out there listening who don’t charge a deposit and who aren’t firm with their payment terms and who are extending credit. Or they are the business owners out there that are invoicing people and then not staying on top of how much money’s owed to them. Talk to the person there who’s fighting.

Can I preach a little?

Preach it, please.

I haven’t preached in a while.

Preach it now.

Can I get an amen?

Amen.

Amen.

Can I get an amen?

I’ll give you an amen.

Now listen here. Nobody wants the money in your bank more than you should want it. Make that wallet fat. Keep Jack. And I’ll tell you what, if you’re out there doing something for free, shame on me.

Why?

For not telling you to go get the money!

What did you say.

Honey, go get the money!

What’d you say, boo?

Go get the money.

That’s what he saying.

Listen folks, you got to say, give me half down before I start.

Come on now.

Half down because I’m not a clown.

That’s good.

Come on now. Come on now. You feel me? Can I get an amen?

Can I get an amen?

Because if you don’t, you get this. Oh, ah, ah yeah.

We just went back to white church. You just left the African American energy. Now we’re back at a Presbyterian church now. [inaudible 00:20:51].

If you don’t do that, if you’re not very proactive on getting the money, and I don’t know why, if you’re a construction guy for example, you’re really good at what you do. You’re really good, all that kind of stuff. But there seems to be this timidity. They’re not timid to go ask for the deal. They’re not timid to come in and bid the deal. They’re not tempted to do that. But there’s something about going, I sure [inaudible 00:21:16].

I don’t understand it. I really have tried to understand it. Chop, you’re a business coach. I don’t get it.

Especially for the construction guys out there. You have to buy those materials before you can even start. So it makes sense to the customer that you need money. It’s not like-

Can I give you an example? There is a printing vendor I used to work with years ago, and they would send me an invoice for ink that would be like a thousand dollars. And a lot of times they would mail it to the wrong address or they would send it late or whatever. And I talked to the small business and I said, “Hey, can I just put a credit card on file, please? And then each month will you just email me a receipt and just charge it?” And they said, “Well, we’re not set up to do credit cards. It costs like an extra 2, 3%.” And so eventually, I’m not kidding… Eventually this guy goes out of business. And I remember talking to the guy and I said, how many people were like me? Because when he went out of business, all of a sudden he’s trying to collect everything.

I said, “How many people were like me that owed you more than three grand that you notified the last minute that we hadn’t paid you? How many of us were there?” He goes, “Oh, there was probably hundreds.” And I’m going, what in the world? I mean, that’s just not a move. So unless you are a bank, don’t act like one. And if you are a bank, act like one and stay on top of it.

There you go.

So Elon Musk writes, he says, I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. I think that’s the single best piece of advice, constantly thinking about how you could do things better and questioning yourself. So Z, on a capstone thought here, your business coach will help all the listeners out there build an effective tracking sheet.

But for anybody out there that’s, I’m too busy to track. I forgot to track. I thought my husband was going to track. I thought my wife was going to do the tracking. I just don’t have time to track myself. I thought they were going to do it. I mean, Z, what would you say to someone who’s perpetually not tracking?

Well, you got to inspect what you expect. That is the way you do it. That’s one of the forms of doing that. You don’t just show up at the office and go, well, everybody’s here. And I guess so well, looks good. Okay, I’ll see you guys later. [inaudible 00:23:21]. Then it also does, Clay does something really fun for the team. It allows you to set some goals, goals, expectations. If you’re tracking, if you’re like, okay, we saw this many patients today. If we do this many, we get something.

Now, Thrive Nation, when we come back, we’re talking about how to name your company.

The Thrive Time Show. Today, interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the plant.

You can learn the proven 13 point business systems that Dr. Zoellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. When we get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website, we’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. Now we’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two day, 15 hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems. So now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve.

You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I’ve 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 was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge. And they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big, get rich quick walk on hot coals product.

It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. And I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying. And I want you to Google the Z66 Auto Auction. I want you to Google, Elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zoellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’ll even give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see you.