Entrepreneur | 6 Steps for Turning Your Passion Into Profits

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrive Time Show! Look, look, as a father of five, that’s where I’mma 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 started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, and that’s what we gotta do. All right, what’s going on there, Tulsa and Oklahomies? Welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. This is a place that many of you have discovered as kind of your audio dojo of mojo, and a place that you go fo sho to learn how to start or grow a business. And for many of you, you kind of discovered Z, people have discovered this is not a political show Dr. Zellner, this is not a political show. I thought it was home and gardening, is it not home and gardening? It’s not home and gardening, it’s not political. How do I know when to plant my tulips if we don’t talk about that? If you stay tuned to hour three of this two hour program, we’ll get into those gardening tips. But today we are talking about a subject that’s very near and dear to our heart. It is the six steps for turning your passion into profits. So, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Why profit? Does that seem so dirty? Well, a lot of people are listening here, and let’s say that you’re a musician. As an example, hypothetically, you are a musician, or you are a painter. I just want to paint paintings. I want to play my music. I just want to do my thing. You’re obsessed with the human eye. You want to make the human eye better. You want to help improve vision. If you want to turn your passion into profits, you want to listen up because according to Forbes, Dr. Z, 57% of Americans, 57% of the people listening to this program, and I’m sure we have non-Americans who are also listening, but 57% of Americans want to start or grow a business, this show is for you. But you know, this week’s been really exciting. I mean, we switch times. We’re not drive time anymore. No, we’re lunch time. You’re eating your egg salad, you’re on your way to TGIF Fridays, maybe for lunch, because it is Friday, by the way. It is Friday all day. Or you’re going to Oklahoma Joe’s, which as we know has incredible barbecue. If you’re looking for a great way to end your week and to celebrate the conclusion of a great work week, go to Oklahoma Joe’s. They have two locations to serve you. Get those legendary baked beans and it could change your life. Change your life. Or you’re on the way to the mall to buy a Christmas outfit because it’s party time. It’s Christmas party time. You may have one tonight you’re going to. It’s Friday night. Yeah. You could have something you’re going to tonight and you’ve got to get the right outfit. You’ve got to get the right outfit. Now, Z, we have a very special guest on today’s program. A guy who is, I mentioned this kind of leading into the show here, but if you’re a musician and you want to turn it into a paid career, there’s a lot of people who are musically talented. There’s a lot of people who have a passion, but they haven’t figured out how to turn their passion into their profit center or into their job. We’ve got a guy today by the name of Mr. Merton Huff, who is actually the praise and worship leader for the Metropolitan Baptist Church, a church that my wife and I attend. And he is a phenomenal, a phenomenal praise and worship leader. He’s super, super humble, but they’ve been doing things right for a hundred years. This is their hundredth anniversary at the minute. I know, I thought of my mug. You know, I visited the other day with you, and they say your first time visiting, you always get a mug and a hug. And I was drinking coffee just out of my mug this morning. So Mr. Mert, how are you, my friend? Man, I’m great. How are you? Man, I am honored to have you on the show. I think I want to ask you a question that a lot of Thrivers want to ask because there’s somebody listening right now who goes, I’m just so passionate about something and I can’t figure out how to turn it into my job. At what point in your life did you realize that music was going to be your career? Well, I realized it probably very early on. I started playing piano at about four or five years old. My mom played piano. She started me and my sister singing gospel and my dad sang quartet. He played guitar. So we learned very early on how to harmonize. So you guys are like a Partridge family, huh? Yeah. You guys have a big bus you drove around in? No, we didn’t have a bus. Oh, you didn’t have a bus. We have a station wagon. Oh, well, it’s kind of like a bus. Yeah, it’s kind of like one. Bus-ish, you know, that’s good. Alright. So we learned very early on just to sing and harmonize and I think we were so enthralled with music growing up. All my aunts and uncles played piano. My granddad was a preacher. So we were just in church all the time and everybody is, I can show you some videos, everybody’s singing, everybody’s playing. Everybody’s singing. Like we’re taking turns jumping off the piano like who’s going to, we’re arguing over who’s going to play because there’s so many talented people in the room. Well here’s the thing that I’ve discovered. I went to college at Oral Roberts University and I grew up without money. I didn’t have a rich uncle or a rich family member supporting me. I think a lot of people, you’re 17, you’re 18, you’re 19, and now all of a sudden you look up and you’re 30. And at one point you had a big passion and a big dream, but at some point most people go, yeah, I’ve got to get realistic. Why did you not get quote unquote realistic? Why did you just decide to focus in on music and make it your career? I think there was a time that I did get realistic. I graduated at 16. Really? I skipped the 11th grade. I graduated early and I went into college at 16. Everybody said major in business or do something. Nobody told me to go into music because they didn’t feel like it was like watching paint dry man yeah it was like torts and legal research and civil procedure then I changed I made it a business really yeah business business diamond business and I hated that so then I went to school for hair so I learned how to do cosmetology and barbering and I did hair for probably the next 15 16 years I during the break can you move trim up over I got you, yeah. There we go. Because he’s trying to get a perm. I’m just kidding, I’m just kidding. So you, but how did you, at what age did you finally get back into music? Well I stayed in music in the church, but I kind of used the hair business to kind of fund some of my projects as far as music. So I used what I made doing hair to pay for my studio time and to get into the studio to record music while I was in Atlanta and different things. So I never really left the industry as far as music is concerned. When did you become a full-time musician? What year was that? How old were you when that happened? 2010. I was 29 turning 30. 29? Yeah. You’re listening to The Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 11. So you’re listening right now, Travers. I want you to get out a sheet of paper. Some people are using an Etch-a-Sketch or an iPad. I want you to do the two little balls. It’s really hard to write with an Etch A Sketch, but some people can do that while driving and it’s very safe for these people. Some people can do it in their office, but I want you to go ahead and write this down right now. I want you to write down, if you only had one year left to live, what would you spend your time doing in these five areas? Here we go. Faith. If you had one year left to live, what would you be doing with your time as it relates to faith? Second, family. Third, finances. Fourth, friendships. Five, fitness. And because Dr. Z is present, we’re going to add one more Dr. Z. What’s that? The bonus. The bonus F. This just came from a whole box. And that is what you’ll be doing for fun. Oh, fun. Wow. I know, because I’ve heard of it before. That’s the best one. I’ve read a book about fun, but it wasn’t very fun. For those of you out there that know Clay, who is like, we’re not sure what planet he’s from, but we know that his DNA does not match up with a normal human. And so, you know, I’ve been working with him now for a couple of years, and he is a working machine, robotic in fact. And so I’m always trying to say, hey, listen, bro, bro, bro, bro, all work and no play. That’s no good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, that’s the sixth one. You got to have a little fun. But that’s a great question. You have one year left. 365 days. Maybe it’s a leap year you get that extra day. I don’t know. That would be good. It could come across as a downer, but I hope this is an uplifting moment for the listeners. When I was in college, we’re going to get into these six steps, but I want to tell you this story because this is what happens for most people. Something horrible has to happen to shake you out of your slumber. You see, according to USA Today, they did a study and they found, you can Google this and verify, 59% of Americans think that the American dream is no longer possible in the United States. 59%! It breaks my heart! So people start, they go to work, they go to church, they go home. They go to work, they go to church, they go home. Okay, they go to work. And you get stuck in that groove, and you kind of look up and you go, I’m 50. Now, here’s what I want to help you with. When I was in college, I was going to Oral Roberts University, and there’s one guy by the name of Ryan Tedder, who’s now, he writes songs for Beyonce and Adele. He lives right across the hall from me. There’s me. There’s a guy by the name of, we have a lot of different characters on the floor, but there’s a lot of these different characters. Meeker, you know, Meeker, he wanted to be a sports agent. And what happened was, is we’re all going out, doing college. I started my DJ business in my dorm room, because that’s how I paid for college. Or I used $16,000 a year at the time. And so you divide that by five because I charged $5 a head to attend the dance parties that I threw at the Marriott where it was oh so very hot. And that’s how I funded college. And so I’m out there promoting my business because I have no other alternative. I’m promoting DJ.com because I have no other way to stay enrolled. That’s how I did it. Well, one day my friend, my roommate Mark, he says, hey, I can’t go with you tonight to set up. I want to go with you, but I can’t. A good friend of ours, Nick, his tire blew out out there halfway on the way to Stillwater. He called me. I’ve got to go help him. So he drives out there, drives back. He sees some sort of animal on the road or something, tries to avoid it, and he gets killed in a car accident. So I came back from the DJ show and at Oral Roberts University they have all men dorms and all women dorms. And this guy had been my friend since I was like three or four years old. I’d known the guy forever. I actually went to high school in Minnesota and I moved back to go to Oral Roberts University in large part to be his roommate. And I come back and there’s all 32 guys all just sitting there quiet as could be on the floor. It’s normally boisterous and vibrant. And none of them could talk. They were all just, they looked super somber. Adam pulls me aside and he goes, hey, Mark’s dead. Wow. And just that that thought of just what? And you you go, OK, and they all of a sudden hit you like, man, life is such a gift. Every day is such a gift. I mean, this is the day that the Lord has made and we should rejoice and be glad in it. But some of us are delaying that focus and that joyfulness because we think someday. We got Monday, Z, we got Tuesday, yeah, oh yeah, Wednesday, Thursday, this just in, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, but we never have some day. And so what we do is we delay and then we kind of go, we wait for a big life altering event, a disease, a death, something, and all of a sudden we go, wait a minute, what am I doing? And what we want to do today is we want to shake you, Z, we want to help you become awake. And so Z, what advice would you have for someone who’s listening right now who feels like you’re in kind of a coma and you’re just now starting to shake yourself, you’re like, wait a minute, I don’t know whether I am doing what I want to do. What advice would you have for them Z? Well, I would do exactly what you said. Get out a piece of paper and write down those six answers that you asked for. Yeah. And listen to the rest of the show because what we’re going to do is we are lighting a fire underneath your passion and we want you to turn that passion, because if you’re doing what you love, your passion, i.e. and you’re making money on it, oh, life is good. Let me tell you this, Thrivers, if you’re listening right now, there are six steps for turning your passion into profits. When you learn these, I’m telling you, it’s going to absolutely change your life around. I can hardly wait to get to them. Are they coming up next? They’re coming up next. All right. Right after the break? Right after the break. You got to stay tuned. These six super moves coming up when we return. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. During your afternoon, I’m telling you what, Thrivers, if you are looking for a quick midday pick-me-up, if you’re looking to learn how to start or grow a business, you have found your right show. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year in your ear. And as always, I am joined with a man, he is an optometrist, but he’s trapped inside an entrepreneur’s body. It’s Dr. Robert Zellner. Sir, how are you? Well, I’ve been trapped in here now for a while, so… Are you getting used to it? You know what the fun about this show is, is I can let a little bit of that out. Just a little bit? Just a little bit. And now that this whole week we’ve been on at lunchtime, you know, people are calling in, they’re emailing, saying, you know, my… Listening to your show actually makes my chicken salad sandwich taste better. I don’t know if that’s an actual fact. I can’t prove that. It’s hard to prove it. It’s hard to prove, but I mean we are the number one business talk show in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That is true. And see, I’m going to tell you this. There’s a little secret I want to share with all the thousands of people listening. And as long as you’re listening right now and you promise not to share it with any more than ten people, we’re okay. But Dr. C. actually owns an auto auction. You own an auto auction? Yes, I do. And you’ve invested in a bank. Yes. And you have a horse center and a horse ranch. And a ranch. And a jimmy and all that. So you’re not really an optometrist. Listen, don’t let anybody paint you in a corner. Today we’re talking about taking your passion and turning it to profit. P for P. Passion for profit. In other words, doing what you want to do, what you’re passionate about doing, and actually making a living doing it. Because you know, people got bills. People have bills. I mean, that’s just a word off the street is people have bills. This just in from our home office on the left coast of the Arkansas River. Just in. So listen folks, this show is about encouraging you and unlocking that entrepreneur in you. Because there is very down deep, you may have crushed it down over the years, you might have settled for something, you might be punching the time clock, but deep down inside as studies after studies have shown, the last one from Forbes said, hey, almost six out of ten of you want to start your own business. And we’re here to help you do that. And we have a guy on the show today who has taken his passion and has turned it into his profit center, into his career. He’s taken something he loves to do and he’s turned it into what he does for a living. It is the praise and worship leader over there at the Metropolitan Baptist Church. These guys have been a church for over, this year is their 100th year. That’s a long time. And Mr. Merton Huff is their praise and worship leader. Mr. Merton How are you sir? I’m great. How are you man? I am you ever been there praise and worship leader the whole 100 years. Have you I haven’t you look pretty young He was starting to look All right, just checking I remember when Martin used to lead when Mabel He and Mabel used to get up there and it was awesome. He’s been there for a hundred years. Seriously, though, we’re talking about step number one of how to turn your passion into profit. Step number one is you have to find a problem that you are passionate about solving. I’m going to give you a notable quotable that I’m going to ask you, Z, here. Here we go. Okay. All right. This comes from the CEO of Evernote, Phil Libin. He says, there’s a lot of bad reasons to start a company, but there’s only one good one, one legitimate reason. And I think you know what it is. It’s to change the world. Right. I don’t know whether I necessarily agree with that, but it’s something to think about. But Z, talk to me about this. For anyone listening right now, and they’re struggling to find a problem that they’re passionate about solving, they’re struggling to find their niche in the world, what advice would you have for them? Well, make sure the problem is something solvable, something we can turn into profit. I mean, I hate potholes, you know, but I’m not gonna be like, that’s my problem, I’m gonna solve it. I really hate gravity. I don’t do well with gravity, I don’t like it. I’m gonna reverse gravity, yeah, exactly, same thing. So, make sure it’s something that you really, really wanna do, and also, let’s think this thing through, folks, through our steps today, and from listening to the show, we’re gonna give you practical steps in how to go from where you are right now to opening that business that makes money, that you go, you know what, I love going to work every day. I’m the man or the woman that’s in charge now. This is awesome. I control my destiny and I’m doing what I love to do. And you know what, when people do what they love to do, it makes the world a better place. It does. People come back and bring friends. People come back and bring friends. Now Mert, I want to ask you this because you’re a praise and worship leader. How would you describe the problem that you solve for the world? What is it that you do as a praise and worship leader? I mean, what is your, your job? If someone says, where do you, what do you do? I mean, what does the praise and worship leader actually do? What is your thing? So I feel like my job is to offer people love and healing through music, through music. That’s awesome. Like, now I’m going to tell you what you do for me on a Sunday and you tell me if you just see if I’m doing it wrong here. So I get up on Sunday, you get about five or 4am every day. I get up, I’m reading my books, you know, and we have holidays like everybody else. We have Thanksgiving, you know, families in town. You tell me a perfect family, by the way. If you’re listening right now and you’re a perfect family, feel free to judge me. But here’s the thing is, you’ve got family in town, you always have a random uncle who’s always hitting you up for money, or somebody. Everyone’s got the uncle Eddie, the cousin Eddie, you know. And you take the family to church. And I’ll tell you what, some things have upset you. You’ve opened up your cell phone, you’ve seen some text messages that were not that positive. Maybe you got a Facebook message or an email. I try to turn that off on the weekend. Let’s just say hypothetically I come to church and I’m not exactly in the right disposition. I believe in Jesus and Christ and I want to I want to but I’m not mentally there yet. Martin, have you ever seen people show up to church and not mentally there yet? Every week, absolutely. Not at the Met though, it’s other churches. Other churches, not a Metropolitan Baptist. So people come in. Now, how long does it take you typically to kind of get somebody into the spirit of worship? Well, I think it depends on what happens before they get there. Oftentimes, like you said, but oftentimes if the song is right, and you know, sometimes I’ll stop singing just for a moment just to remind them, you know, of God’s goodness and you know, reasons that you have to be thankful, reasons that you have to feel love. You know, you may not feel it in this moment. But I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but I do want to put you on the spot. Can you think about what you played last Sunday when people were getting there? Can you think about what that song was? Can you think about that? Which one? Maybe a song you might play when people first get there. Can you kind of cue up something here? Give us a little teasing here of what you do professionally. You are my strength. Oh keep it going now. I’m just getting there, bud. Oh man, I’m not ready. I’m just getting there, bud. Oh man, I’m not ready. I’m just getting there, bud. I’m just getting there, bud. I got all these negative Facebook messages. Wait a minute. I got a bad feeling for you. I’m starting to forget about Facebook now. I’m starting to forget about Facebook now. My kids had a fight this morning. I’m getting upset. I’m being upset. It’s starting to happen. I’m starting to feel it. I’m starting to feel it. I’m starting to get into it, Z. I’m starting to feel it. That’s what he does. That’s what he does. And Mert, I’m going to ask you a question now. So that’s your job you’re doing right now, but what is your, you know, that’s your passion music. And I love the fact that you’re making a living doing what you, you know, what you love to do. What’s the next, what’s your big dream? What’s your big thing? What do you want? Where do you see yourself? I mean, I give you a blank canvas and you can just paint whatever you want to paint. What would it look like? If I could paint whatever I want to, it’s to share music internationally. I like to be out there at full throttle doing what I can do every day, all day. I love leading worship. I love being at the church. Bro, you want to go viral, is that it? Yeah. I tell you what, I’m just telling you, when I go to church, every time I go, I’m just telling you, I, it, you, and I mean this, a little fist bump to you, it carries me through about Tuesday. Now I’m telling you, I have a complaint though, because Wednesday I’m starting to, I manage a lot of employees. I’m about to call you Tuesday, you think so? Yeah, there you go. Between Z and I, there’s about 700 employees between Z and I, okay? And so when you start to, so about Tuesday you start to have the first or second employee theft. You’ve got the first or second, I’m serious, you’ve got real stuff that happens. People stealing stuff, you’ve got people breaking stuff, you’ve got people faking, not showing up, faking sickness. And I’m like, Mert, where’s Mert? Mert, Mert, where’s Mert? Mert, I need you. I might have him on the show every Tuesday now just to kind of get me going. I got to get you going back again. But I’m just saying, if you’re listening right now, Thrivers, and you can solve a problem for people, then you can charge people for that solution. And I mean that in all sincerity. You got to find something that you can do that’s a problem you can solve for people. And Mert does that Z. I know I love it and that’s you know when you see somebody doing what they love and making a living doing it and it’s just so electric. It’s just so fun. It’s what we’re about as business coaches. It’s what we’re about as entrepreneurs trying to mentor up the next generation of business owners. Now step number two, we come back we have to attempt to sell it. So if you think you have something you have to attempt to sell it. Alright Tulsa, T-Town, Oklahomies welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. My name is Clay Clark, I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year in your ear, and as always I am joined with the co-host, with the mo-ost, it’s Dr. Robert, Dr. Z, Zellner. Sir, how are you doing? I am fantastic. It’s Friday, it’s the Christmas season, I mean what could be better? It’s lunchtime, I’m at Oklahoma Joe’s, having my burnt ends and baked beans and loving life, listening to the show on my little smartphone going, man, these guys are going to coach me up. You know, there’s a certain pageantry in the air. There’s a certain festiveness. There’s a certain… I tell you what, this is the time of year where you start to get out those holiday accoutrements. You start to get out your decor. You begin to change the ambiance of your atmosphere. It’s just a holiday. Someone just… You just can… Peppermint. You can smell the radio right now. I know the pine cones We brought on a guy here today who can really change the atmosphere of any Occasion it is mr. Merton Huff the praise and worship leader here for the Metropolitan Baptist So we’re talking today about how to turn your passion into profits. Mr. Merton. How are you doing? Hey, I’m doing good. How are you man? I am excited to talk about step number two. Dr. Z it is you must attempt to sell it. So step number one, you’ve got to find a problem that you’re passionate about solving. But step number two, you have to actually attempt to sell it. So I’m going to give you a notable quotable. Here you go. When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it, Henry Ford. Henry Ford, the guy who started Ford. He did have a car thing, didn’t he? Was that the car guy? Yeah, he had some success. Now here’s the thing is… That’s Henry Chevrolet, I forget. Once you, Z, you think you’re good at something, once you think you have a thing, you have to go out there and attempt to sell it. I have a story for you. I was starting this DJ connection business and people were saying, dude, you’re pretty good. This was before I was in a dorm room. This was actually when I was like 15 years old. 15 years old. I was 15, not quite 16. And they had this thing called Students Against Drunk Driving. And these guys would get together and they would have a dance called the Sad Dance, which is kind of a ridiculous name for a dance, but the Sad Dance. And they’d hire a local DJ, like a local FM guy, and he’d be like, alright kids, welcome to the dance party, we have a good time tonight. And he’d play, he’d always play like a rando song, like, you know, he’d play, you know that man from Cotton Eye Joe, I’ve been married a long time ago, where did you come from? You know, like, what? And then he’d go into some R&B song, you know, like by Montel Jordan, this is how we do it. And then he’s going into some like slow song and you’re just like, what is going on? This guy is so rando. And you look and you’re going, this has to change. So I was openly complaining to Miss Page. Miss Page is the lady who organizes the student dances. And she says, Mr. Clark, if you and Mr. Schultz think you can do a better job, by the way, she looked like Lois from the Superman show. Oh yeah. So we’re always like, what Miss Paige? Why would you think you’re what, Miss Paige? We all secretly were in love with this lady. And so she said, if you think you can do a better job than the DJ, then you can do it yourself. And I’m like, I’m in it. I’m doing it. Let’s go. I’m in it. So anyway, I booked the equipment. I rented the equipment. I had no DJ experience. I’m 15 years old. My dad had to drive me to the school dance. But let me tell you what, I worked out a deal where I got to keep $5 a head after the first hundred kids. Profit. So I’m going, I got to sell this thing. You got to sell it. Maybe I broke some rules. You tell me how bad of a party fell. How bad of a party fell. This would have been. I invited all the kids from other schools to the high school, to the school dance middle school dance to the middle school even better it just keeps getting better so I’m in a town called Dazzle Croquetto I invited kids from Litchfield oh yeah from Adelano oh my from Hutchinson Hutchinson? even the kids from Hutchinson? and so I’m not exaggerating we ended up going from like a hundred fifty kids was the average attendance you know to like nearly a thousand like breaking fire codes but I was totally motivated to sell it and I found that when you try to sell it, people say, who’s going, who’s going to be there? I’m like, everybody’s going to be there. All the cool kids. Yeah. So my friend, he was a little bit older, but he’d drive me around in his car. We drop off flyers. We’re promoting that thing, but we had to hustle and Z, if you want to see good hustle, you go to the mall during the holidays or you go to New York city and you see a street vendor or one of those, those vendors at the mall and they want to hustle. But does he tell me why is it so hard to sell it? I mean, once you have the big idea, why do so many entrepreneurs get stuck when it’s time to sell it? Because they’re good at making the thing. Making the thing. They’re making the thing. They just don’t know how to sell the thing. And that’s marketing, that’s closing, that’s asking for the buy. I mean, you’ve got to be purposeful in that. We’ve got shows on it. You can go back on ThriveTimeShow.com and see some shows that we’ve done on marketing, being purposeful, asking for the buy. A lot of people can spend the time showing them they won’t even ask for the buy. They’re like, eh, look at my thing. Why is it so hard to make gluten-free cupcakes? I just want to make them gluten-free and they’re cupcakes. Look at my thing. And then they like, and there’s a thing in the back of their mind. They probably don’t want to buy them. They probably, they probably won’t. Bro, I got a food truck, bro. Bro, I won’t. You’ve got to, so you have to, there’s a sense of purpose to it. And you have to be proactive. And we love to say our ABC and that is Clay. Always be closing. Right. Because you know what? You may have the best. I promise you there are people out there that have made a wonderful widget. And they’ve made, I mean a great widget. I mean it’s like world changing widgets. It is the world’s best widget. This just in. This widget will change your life. All our widgets are the best. And yet, they sell none of them because they don’t follow step two. And that is you’ve got to work on selling your product. And Z, we have fabulous training on selling, but we come back after the break. I want to hear how Merton, Mr. Merton Hoff, Praise and Worship Leader, how he was able to sell himself to his first full-time music gig. What that process was like, because many musicians are very talented. Merton, would you agree? Yeah, absolutely. Many talented people out there who are not doing this full-time. They’re selling insurance, they’re selling cars, but you, you are the envy of America. You are doing what you love to do full time. So we’re going to talk about his specific journey, Z, to going from, hey, this is my passion, but now this is my job. Yeah, absolutely. And you know what? What’s so fun about this show is, is that we bring on local success stories. We highlight them and we give you a little flavor, a little taste of their life, what they’ve done, you know, for encouragement, for edification, to try to pump you up so that you go from being a wantrepreneur to a Entrepreneur now Z if somebody if somebody wants to find out more about merge or merge if people want to find out more about you Where can they find you on any given Sunday? Metropolitan Baptist Church 1228 West Apache Tulsa, Oklahoma 7 4 1 2 7 Stay tuned Thrive Time Show. All right Thrive Nation, Tulsa, Oklahoma, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show where we are broadcasting from the left coast of the Arkansas River in beautiful Jinks, America and we are nestled in the box that rocks. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the father of five human kids, the kind of pseudo-father of many chickens, many cats, and I am joined here today with a guy who’s been a mentor of mine. He’s kind of like a father figure meets entrepreneur. He’s one of my favorite, I honestly will say, of male humans, in the male human category, you are my favorite male human. Dr. Robert Zellner, sir. You would call that a father-a-newer? You’re a father-a-newer. Or a dad-a-newer? Yeah, it sounds really close to a newer, and I just want to steer away from that. Yeah, stay away from that. But I’ll tell you what, I finally came out, and for those of you that ever get the invite to go to the, we’ll just call it the compound, which is the Clark residence. They’re building a wall, they got trees surrounding it. They’ve got this, it’s really, and your man cave, I will admit, is when we did a show out of there last week. So you can get on Thrive Time Show and check it out. But it’s unbelievable. You like it? And the chickens? The chickens are beautiful. The chickens are a thing. And they’re kind of tame. They want to hang around the humans. Yeah, they just kind of follow us around. They follow you around like a dog or a cat. And I can’t confirm that you do have five human children. They’re lovely kids by the way. Great kids, wonderful wife. I keep tricking her into staying married to me. It’s a tough battle. Apparently it’s working. I fight it on a daily battle. She can’t see, Z. She’s never been into your clinic. She’s never been able to see. You pay me a lot of money not to correct her vision. That’s right. And now I get it. I get it. It makes sense. It makes sense. Here’s the thing, Z. We’re talking today about the step number two you have to once you determine your passion and you want to turn it into your profit you have to actually sell you have to convince people to hire you to do what you’re passionate about it’s we brought on a guy today Mr. Mertenhoff he is the praise and worship leader of the Metropolitan Baptist Church and this is a fabulous church it’s about was about 10 miles north of downtown maybe a miles and maybe a mile a mile downtown so I want to ask you here my friend, how did you, or I guess we’ll start with, when did you get your first full time music gig? So I think my first full time gig was here in Tulsa actually. I was living in Atlanta and I actually went to tour in Switzerland for Christmas with the choir and I was talking to a buddy of mine and I said, man, I really want to be able to do full time music. I want to do hair when I feel like it. I was working in a salon there and I was a music director at a church. So you’re a music director at a church and you’re doing hair on the side? Yeah, I’m doing hair on the side. Is that like a barber shop? Yeah, like a barber shop. Oh, like outside. So you’re like a therapist, really. Yeah. That trimmed hair. Yeah, that’s what. So you’re doing hair slash therapy with people. Yeah. And you’re working as a music ministry guy and you’re just going, hey, I want to do this full time. I want to do this full time. Yeah. And I was recording music. Like I said, I was using the salon business to pay for my music, so I was doing all these things. And I posted my resume on this site called churchstaffing.com. Never thought about it again, never even looked at it again. The church here found me on Church Staffing. They looked me up on YouTube and they was like, we got to look. So they contacted me on Facebook and they said, do you have your resume on Church Staffing? And I was like, yeah. And so they said, we want to bring you out to talk to you about a full-time position here at the church as director of music, performing arts and all those things. And I said, oh wow. So they flew me out. I did a rehearsal with the choir. They had narrowed it down to three candidates. They did a nationwide search and it was like we narrowed it down to three people. You’re the second. And it was, I did a rehearsal with them and I interviewed several interviews and lunches and things. And I did a Sunday service with them. And at the service, it was like unanimous. Like the church wants you to come. If you come, if you say you’ll take it, we’ll cancel the last guy and we’ll bring you back in two weeks to find a place. And two weeks later I was moving. Man, you must have nailed it then. You said we’ll cancel the last guy. That’s pretty sweet. Can you give us a little sampling of what people can hear on a Sunday service there at the Metropolitan Baptist? That’s good stuff. Yeah. Here we go. Who is he who answers when I call? Who is there in the time of need and when I get weak who gives me his strength? Who else but God? Who else but God? Who has power beyond what eyes can see? Who orders the wind to blow and rivers flow and who’ll be there when everyone else leaves? Who else but God? Who else but God? Just a little something for you Friday. You’re Friday at lunch, you’re sitting there having your chicken salad sandwich, and you’re like, you know, I feel better. I don’t know if it’s a chicken salad, but all of a sudden I feel better. I think I can make it to the weekend now. There was three lessons that he just taught. I don’t know if he’s cognitively aware that you just taught these, but there’s three moves that I want to share with you as it relates to selling the world on the concept that they should pay you for your passion. One is you’ve got to have a second job. You’ve got to do it. Or third or fourth. We’ve been there. I worked at Target. I worked at Applebee’s. And I worked at West Telecommunications selling outbound calls. I mean, I’m a mathematician, but I count three. Yeah, my wife was working at Office Depot. And I spent all of my money on ads. Now Z, when you started your business, you actually worked for another optometry clinic while starting your own. Oh yeah, because they make seven days. So it was convenient that there was an extra day or two that I wasn’t working in my own job so I could go work in somebody else’s. You’ve got to do it. So that’s his first super move. That is strong. People are like, well, they just sit out their CD or they post a resume and they sit at their home and play Nintendo all day or Xbox or Atari or whatever you’re into. And they’re like, yeah, man, they’re going to call me soon. I know, man. Step two. I’m just waiting for that phone to ring. I posted this on the Thrive15 Facebook here this morning. But Ryan Tedder, who is the songwriter for Beyonce and Adele and One Republic, he talked about how he would buy CDs and at the bottom they have a customer service number you can call for customer service. He would call that number consistently and he would send his demos. The thing is, check it out, the harder you work, the luckier you get. I’m quoting Thomas Jefferson. The harder you work, the luckier you get. So you’ve got to fail more. You’ve got to get more no’s before you get a yes. And if you had not posted that resume, you would not have got that call. Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, everyone’s got to, you’ve got to shoot. You’re not going to ever make a shot if you don’t take shots. Oh, that’s a deep thought right there. Deep thought by Claytron. This just in from our home office. You have to make sure that you do that though. And the third thing is you’ve got to hold out for the dream job. You’ve got to, you can’t settle. If you would have said, you know what, I’m working in a barber shop and I’m working part time and that’s all there’s going to be and I’m 29, I’ve missed my shot, you wouldn’t have got the job. Yeah, absolutely. And I think another thing for me also was location. And I’ll say that, and I don’t know if that works for everybody, but being in Atlanta is a place that’s saturated. It was saturated with musicians and artists and models and every career field you could think of is saturated. So I limited myself to say, Oh, I got to make it. I got to stay here in Atlanta. I moved here to Atlanta and I know so many friends and so many people who said, I got to stay here, you know, you know, you’re putting all your eggs in one basket. Really, you know, realizing that what you did is you’re listening right now, once you get out a sheet of paper, or get out that sheet of paper you started on earlier, and make a list of all the things you’re willing to give up, Z, the trade-offs that you’re willing to make for what you want. Now I’m going to tell you this, when my wife and I, we decided to start Thrive 15, before I was able to successfully shark tank my good brother from another mother, Dr. Zellner, into teaming up with us, Vanessa and I, we literally had this conversation. And she goes, what are you willing to give up? We have five kids. She said, what are you willing to give up? And I said, I’m willing to get up at 3 a.m. every day for 10 years. Because I’m not going to work late. But I will get up at 3 and I’ll go into certain boundaries. Every weekend I’m with my kids, the nights I’m with my kids, the weekends. But I’m willing to get up at 3 and I’m willing to put in that extra six hours a day every day. And I’m not gonna stop until we get there because I know that we’ve built a successful company, we know how to build a multimillion dollar company, we’ve done it numerous times, and people keep asking me, can we meet for lunch? People keep saying, can I pick your brain for lunch? And I go, I’m not available. And I felt bad because I know what it’s like to grow up in poverty, I know what it’s like to not have money, and I wanted to help people, but I can’t do it because you’re busy, Z, I’m busy, and we wanted to find a way to help millions of people start and grow a business. And so I was willing to give up a certain set of things, and you’ve been willing to give up a certain set of things. I mean, we do this radio show, not as we do this to help people. That’s our whole passion, man. I mean, we’ve, we’ve made a list of what we’re willing to trade off. How important is that Z for people to go in, eyes wide open and make a list of the things they’re willing to give up or trade off? Eyes wide open. Because here’s the thing that people do is they see somebody successful and they go, oh, that looks easy. That must be, apparently it’s easy. It’s super easy. And so then they start down that road of trying to take their passion and turn it into profit and they hit, you know what they hit? They hit a speed bump. They hit a pothole. You know what they do? They go, okay, that’s it, that’s it. That’s it. I’m done. I had no idea that someone would complain that not everybody would love what I’m doing. I saw him out. It’s probably not meant to be. Things aren’t going well. I didn’t see that pothole. I didn’t know until I saw the pothole. So here’s the thing about it is that when you get honest with yourself and say, what am I willing to do? Like Merton just said, I’m willing to move wherever I need to go because that’s more important to me than living in suburbia Atlanta, wherever you are living. I know you said Atlanta, but you know. And the thing about it is, folks, you’ve got to address that. Because being an entrepreneur, turning your passion into profit, if it were easy, we wouldn’t have to have this radio show. If it was easy. I mean, if it was easy. The thing is, according to the statistics that are out there right now, a little over 50 percent, we’re talking 59 percent, according to USA Today, 59 percent of Americans believe the American dream is not possible. And if that’s you, you’re wrong. And we’re here to help you have the success that you deserve. We come back, we’re going to teach you step number three, because once you nail it, Z, you’ve got to scale it. I repeat, Z, once you nail it, you’ve got to scale it. Stay tuned. Preach it. Thrive Time Show. What is going on, Oklahomies in Tulsa? Welcome back to the Thrive Time Show, where we provide you with business school without the BS. And yes, my name is Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year in your ear. And I’m joined here with Dr. Robert Zellner. Let me tell you a little story about Dr. Zellner. He grew up, you know, he didn’t have a lot of money. I’m still out on that. So I mean, OK, how many kids were in your family growing up? Seven. There’s always one girl. And, you know, financially, the family was kind of tight. You went to college at NSU. Yes. And you studied optometry and mathematics. Yes. Go Riverhawks. Go Riverhawks. Is that a thing? Yeah, it’s actually a thing. I thought you were making that up for a second, but I trust you. I’d move forward. No, no. Back when I went to school, we were the Redmen, but our colors were green. So I played on the soccer team. So it was kind of confusing. They’d be like, go Redmen. Go Redmen that wear green. So you went on, you started your optometry clinic. And then from there, what was the next business? Auto auction. And from the next business, what was that? Sleep center. And then from there? DME company, which is durable medical equipment company. And then from there? Medical horse ranch. If you drive south of Tulsa on your way to Ogamogie, which is a fine community, by the way, shout out to Ogamogie. On your way, you go down to highway 75 and on the west side, you’ll see a magical, beautiful, heavenly place called Rockin’ Z Ranch. Rockin’ Z Ranch. Rockin’ Z Ranch. It’s a Rockin’ Z Ranch. Rockin’ Z Ranch. But anyway, so you’ve gone on to have a lot of success. You’ve built multi-million dollar businesses and you take time out of your schedule to teach people how to start and grow a business. I’m excited to have you on the show. And Mr. Merton Huff, this is the praise and worship leader, guys, from the Metropolitan Baptist Church. He’s joining us today because we’re talking about how to turn your passion into profits. And Merton is actually full-time every day doing his passion Merton. How are you doing, sir? I’m great. How are you man? I’m excited to talk about Step number three because once you nail it, you’ve got to scale it now how much Schultz? This is the CEO of Starbucks. He says risk more than others think is safe dream more than others think is practical So I’m gonna give you an example this this right here the profundity of this thought, I’m going to tell you a little bit of my story. And Z has a story that’s a little bit better that he’s marinating on. But a few years ago, I sold DJ Connection. I was 27 years old. I’m 36 now. And people booked me and they said they had booked me to come speak at their event. And I went out there and spoke and the event planner goes, you’re kind of like Jim Carrey meets business speakers. And I’m like, I don’t really see that, but okay. And then the next person said, you’re kind of like, you know, kind of like a business comedian. And then another person and another person pretty soon, I have no exaggeration, like 20 in a month, 20 speaking events in a month, 15 in a month traveling around the country and people are paying me and I’m just going, I have five kids, even though it’s nice to stay in these beautiful hotels, the hotel Victor in Miami, by the way, is first class. Awesome. When you go to these places, you’re going to Roatan, you’re going to Honduras, you’re going to all these places speaking and people love having you and you feel good about it, but you’re going, what are my goals? Like what are my goals? And I started saying to myself, I want to be with my kids. I want to, and I made my F5 list, faith, family, finance, fitness, friendships. And I realized I don’t want to travel around in a big aluminum tube, flying on airplanes, speaking at events. What I want to do is I want to mentor millions, but I want to do it within the friendly confines of Tulsa, Oklahoma. I want people just to fly to me. Absolutely. And so now we have the Thrive 15 World Headquarters. This is nine years later and guess what Z? People are flying to Tulsa to come to these workshops. And I’m telling you what, these workshops, it’s the world’s best business workshop period. You go period? Yeah, you go to thrive15.com forward slash conference. You watch those testimonials. And you know what? We have a scholarship program that we’ve teamed up with many generous investors and we’ve made it affordable for anybody. So if you’re listening right now and you have $7, $7. Yeah. Any money we’ve never turned down a single person because of financial limitations. And I’m telling you what, we have a real estate agent that was not a real estate agent two years ago, and now the lady’s making over $300,000 a year of commissions doing this. We have my brother-in-law who had a vision to start the Elephant in the Room, and I didn’t give him a big cash balloon. I said, hey, I’ll match you dollar for dollar. And you know what, the Elephant in the Room is a very successful company, and he turned it from a vision into reality. And we have, I can go on and on the stories of entrepreneurs. We have a Canadian mortgage guy who closed last year. He made commissions over, he made over a hundred thousand dollars of us money for the first time in his life. As a result of this, we have a guy who has an alarm company named Curtis who is killing it. We have a young guy from Ukraine named Makayla who lives in New York, who learned how to start and grow a business on thrive 15. I just talked to him today and he said the things I’ve learned he went from a college student to literally making over two hundred seventy five thousand dollars of gross revenue last year as a result of what he learned at our conferences. You’re listening to the Thrash Time Show on talk radio 1170. So you talk about a crazy idea convincing people to fly to Tulsa not exactly the birthplace of tourism to come to a business conference and it has happened. So whatever your vision is, I empower you, I anoint you, and I tell you it can happen. But once you nail something, you’ve got to find a way to scale it, Z. Well, I tell you what, there’s something in the water in Tulsa, though. Wall Street Journal claimed it as one of the top five places for entrepreneurs to start a business. Yeah. And they say it was actually the number one for women entrepreneurs to start a business. Number one. So there’s something in the water here in Tulsa. And it’s the rivers, right? We’re on the left coast of the river. Oh, it’s beautiful. So we’ve tapped into that water source right here, and we are just pumping it through the coast to come down. Now, I want to ask you this, Z, for people who are listening, and they go, okay, okay. When you first started to be able to treat patients, because the first step was to be able to run ads that would successfully, advertisements, to successfully get patients into your doors. Yes. But once you got people to come in to Dr. Robert Zellner and Associates. First it was just Dr. Robert, that’s you. Just me. And you had an associate. Yeah, it was me and one girl that worked there. So it was two people. Two. After you nailed that process, how long did it take you before you were able to build these repeatable step-by-step systems that allowed you to duplicate? How long did that take you? Well, I mean, you’ve got to do it right off the bat. I mean, for me it was just that whole process and I’m still doing it. Just the other day I was, I’m actually now expanding my location because I want to see more patients and you can only put so many people into the space. So I’m constantly tweaking it. We’re constantly tweaking. I just hired another doctor. I have eight doctors now that work for me. Some weekends now we’re working three doctor shifts because of the number of clientele that come in. And so you know, the thing about it is you control your business gas pedal. You can control, your business is like a car and the gas pedal, you can control that. And you want to go faster, you just press down on that You may say oh, whoa. Whoa. I can’t go faster than that Well, that’s up to you and we’re not here to tell you how big to make it We’re here to tell you that it’s possible to scale it and to make it bigger and that’s that’s what it’s about because you know You you do one widget and you you sell that widget Yep, and then you make a profit selling that widget and you say yourself. Hey, I think I can do this. Now we’re here to help coach you up on how to make 100 widgets and then 1,000 widgets and maybe even, oh gosh, a million widgets. And in our workshop, we have myopic step-by-step. I’m talking about the detailed, diligent, very, very specific training to teach you. So the elephant in the room, the checklist that we have to open the store, to close the store, to sell a membership, to provide you a custom tailored haircut. By the way, if you’re listening right now, if you’re a listener, the elephant in the room, we have three locations to serve you. And it’s a dollar for your first haircut. One dollar for your first haircut. So Merton, the church as the Met has continued to grow, as the Metropolitan Baptist Church has continued to grow, about five years ago, you guys realized, hey, we’re out of space. Yeah, absolutely. We were having three services, eight, ten, and twelve. Now talk to me as a praise and worship leader, on service number three, what sort of spiritual place do you have to get to to coach yourself into being, I mean, how do you stay, I mean, how do your vocal cords even take three services in a row? Vocally, it can be hard on the voice. You gotta really pace yourself, you gotta make sure you can hear yourself, but you’ve definitely gotta be prayed up and in a good frame of mind to realize these are new people, they just got here, they haven’t been here. You start getting all raspy by… Right, like we have. Actually, I’m clear about 12. Like, 8 o’clock I’m raspy. Like, you know, 10 I’m good. 12 I’m like ready. It’s like a warm up. So you guys had to open up a third service. Then you said, you know what, if we’re going to grow this church to the next level, we have to build a building. Yeah, we actually build a building. We build our Life Center first, which we needed the classroom space and the office space. So we actually built the Life Center first. So I have an action item right now. If you’re listening right now, you own a business. And by the way, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, according to the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, you own a business. And by the way, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, according to the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, you own a business. And by the way, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, according to the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, you own a business. And by the way, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, according to the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, you own a business. And by the way, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, according to the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, you own a business. And by the way, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, according to the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, you own a business. And by the way, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, according to the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, you own a business. according to the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce Over six out of ten of the jobs in Tulsa are provided by a small business owner again If you’re listening right now for six out of ten of you are working for a small business owner So I want you to ask yourself right now. What is your biggest limiting factor? I repeat. What is your biggest? Limiting factor I refer to them often as blips, but what’s your biggest limiting factor? You have to ask yourself that question because, Z, why is it so important to focus on what’s limiting your growth, my friend? Because you want to grow, and that’s the thing. I call it limiting membrane. Limiting membrane. I like your biggest limiting membrane. I like it now. Instead of it, I call it blimps. Blimps, yes. Well, here’s the thing. Here’s the thing, and I tell this to all my employees, and whenever I, you know, when they come to me with a problem, I’m like, thank you for telling me about that problem. They kind of caught through and looked at me like, I think he’s happy I told him my problem. I’m like, now I can fix it. Yeah. I couldn’t fix it if I didn’t know about it. So thank you for empowering me now to dig in and to fix this problem. And that limiting membrane, that limiting filter, that limiting thing is a problem. And if you don’t know it, shame on you. Because if we’re gonna coach you, you have to know it. One of my businesses that I struggled to to grow To scale was a company called DJ connection and before I sold it We were doing about 4,000 events a year But I I struggles I kept trying to find disc jockeys that I would hire over time I realized I don’t need to find guys who know how to DJ I got to find people who know how to be a good employee up on time and teach them how to become a DJ Yeah, I’m on time you win life’s lottery by the way big big Oh So I end up having to teach people who had never DJ’d before how to become disc jockeys. And I’m telling you, if you can do that, you can do anything. Now, step number four, I’m just telling you, trying to teach a grown adult man who’s previously worked at Quick Trip how to become a disc jockey, that is a thing you can do. But step number four is you want to get out a calculator and determine how much money you want to make. You have to invest the time to sit down and go, how much money do I want to make? Now here’s where it gets deep. You’ve got to figure out how much money you want to make per hour. Per hour? Yeah, so you’ve got to divide how much money you want to make by the hours you’re willing to work, and now you start to go, okay, that’s how many transactions I need to do. And quickly you’ll discover that you can’t do every single transaction if you want to scale that business. And Z, I’m telling you, I’m excited to talk about these specific details of determining how much money you want to make because I think a lot of families, they don’t talk about money around the dinner table. Well, they don’t. And, you know, it’s maybe not the family time to talk about it, but definitely the husband and wife or the team together, you talk about that because you’ve got to have the mark, you’ve got to have the target, you’ve got to know what you’re going for before you start the journey of going for it. Because as Kevin Garnett once said, it’s not about the money, but it’s about the money. It’s not about the money, but it’s about the money. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to your Inspiration Station. For many of you, this has become your midday audio dojo of mojo. My name is Clay Clark, and I am here to enlighten you and to entertain you, to educate you, and teach you how to start and grow a successful business. And I’m going to tell you what, I remember what it was like on the outside looking in, and my wonderful wife, she had just got a job working for this guy named Dr. Z. Kind of a legendary figure. He has his name on the sign right there. I’m being serious. Right there outside of the Woodland Hills Mall, you see his name on the sign and my wife goes, I got this job. My friend Kerry helped me get this job. So my wife’s working there at the front desk for Dr. Z. And you know, when you go there, you drop your wife off to work, we’re sharing a car. And I used to sit there in the lobby kind of looking in going, gosh, I wonder how he does it. I had built this DJ entertainment company and I couldn’t grow it past doing about three or four weddings a weekend because I personally only had the time capacity to DJ three or four times a weekend. I’m looking at you going, this guy is seeing like, I don’t even know how many patients, like ten patients an hour, like fifteen patients an hour. All I know is patients are coming in and out. I’m going, how is it possible? And so I started asking him some questions, met this guy at Ruby Tuesdays and did a lot of stalking and I was able to kind of learn a little bit about it. But Dr. Z, it’s an honor to have you on the show today. You’re the best co-host on the planet, my friend. How are you doing? I am fantastic. It’s Friday. It’s over lunchtime. You know, this week we changed. We were drive time and now we’re at lunchtime, which is kind of fun, 12 to 2. So welcome to the show, everybody out there. Tulsa’s number one business talk show. And you didn’t really stalk, you did more of a kind of a creeping move. Kind of a creeper. For the longest time we didn’t know who you were because Vanessa is this angelic, lovely person. I mean if you know her, you know what I’m talking about. Just a sweetheart of a gal. And she had this kind of, you were just a little bit like, you were like a DJ, kind of half DJ, half thug kind of look to you. Yeah, I get a little M&M’s. You had the big clothes, the kind of, a little bit of the attitude. That’s it, come on, give me, give it to me. I mean, you have to open that attitude. And you seem like you’re just a little angry almost. Just a little angry. Just a little edgy. Just a little edgy. I’ll tell you this. This is just the thing. Back in the day, if you stepped in my shoes, I would fight you. That was the whole deal. Oh my God, are you serious? Yeah, the thing was, you get a nice pair of shoes, and you get a guy. This is the attitude I had those wrong, but you go to the movie theater and someone steps on your shoes And then you you scowl at them you skip first. You’re like a 40 year old dad Yeah, like an 18 year old guy juggling popcorn and two dreams And you step in my shoes And I’m just like like I’m just like making that look like really really and then the guy looks back He’s almost like as a man you have two options either fight or flight. Yeah, so that looks back like yeah You want to go and it’s on. It’s a stupid way to live. Just dumb. I was paying the dumb tax every day. Now Z, we have a very special guest on today. We have the praise and worship leader for the Metropolitan Baptist Church there. Mr. Merton Huff. Mr. Merton, how are you doing? Man, I’m great. How are you, man? Brother, I am feeling it today like a petting zoo and we were talking about how to turn your passion into profits. We’re moving on to step number four. This is the part that’s tough for people. It’s to get on a calculator and determine how much money you want to make per year. So what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to think about all the things you want. Boom. Faith, family, finance, fitness, friendships, and fun. The bone is fine. Yeah. And you’re going to think, how much does that cost? How much? And you want to figure it out. You go, this is how much it costs per year. So I’m just going to make it easy. Let’s say it costs $100,000 per year to live your ideal lifestyle. Six figures. You divide that by 50 weeks because you’re going to take maybe two weeks off for vacation, which I’ve never done, but let’s say you did it. So you divide it. Now you’ve got about 2,000 a week. So then you say, well, if there’s 40 hours in a week that I’m willing to work, by the way, as an entrepreneur, you get to work about 60 or 70. You get to choose them. Yeah, you get to choose whatever 60 or 70 hours a week you want. But there you go. Okay. I’ve got to make about $40 an hour to achieve my goal. So now you’ve got to think about what are the skills that I have that will allow me to earn that kind of income or the skills that I need to have to earn that kind of income. Or maybe if you if you make maybe you make cookies and maybe making cookies isn’t a $40 an hour job. Well, how can you scale it and teach other people to make those cookies so that you can bring in that kind of revenue? I’m going to read you a notable quotable and then see I want to get your feedback on that. So here we go. This is a quotable from Tim Ferris, the author of the four hour work week. He’s also a venture capital investor. He says, For all the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn’t conspire against you, but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. Someday is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it, eventually, just do it in correct course along the way. Wow, Z, unpack that. Well, I’ll tell you what, we’re not saying quit your job. We’re just saying start your passion. There’s a difference. Okay. Merton explained earlier beautifully that he was making and he was turning it into studio time, practice time, recording time, because he still had his dream. And so he didn’t say, okay, I’m going to stop being a barber, all right, and I’m going to go be a musician. No, he hybrid them. And that’s what we’re saying to you. And sometimes it’s one job, sometimes two, sometimes it’s three. You know what I’m saying? So what you’re doing out there, keep doing what you’re doing, but start small, get it started, fix it continuously, fail forward and get it going. Now Merton, I want to ask you, how many hours were you working back in the day? Barbershop, ministry, I mean how many hours were you working? Man, probably 60, 70, 80. So you’re hustling. Yeah. What time were you waking up man? Man, I would be in the salon on a Saturday from 7am to 10pm, Sunday morning service at 7am. Now if you’re listening right now and you go, man, that just seems brutal, I’m going to tell you what. I took a job doing construction because, much like Merton, I wanted to be somewhere else and I realized that my destination would require some sacrifice. And so I got a job working construction for a company called Lund Poured Balls. And Gordy, this is what Gordy told me, Gordy’s the boss, Gordy says, if you work 40 hours a week, I’ll pay you $10 an hour. After 40, I’ll pay you a time and a half. Now after 60, you make double. How many hours you want? Yeah. I said, oh man, I said, so what time can we start? He says, well, you meet at the Cenex, it’s a gas station over there in Cocado. You meet at the Cenex at five and we drive down to Iowa to work on the jobs. If you want to be on the shift until 7pm, I can do it. I said, 14 hours a day? He said, yeah. So I worked 14 hours a day. I did that five days a week. And then I worked as a home health aide. It started at 8 p.m. And I worked from 8 p.m. until midnight as a home health aide. And I did that five days a week. And then on Saturday, I worked as a home health aide all day. And Sunday. So I would typically log in a week almost 100 hours. Like 90 hours a week. And I was banking two grand a week two grand a week eighteen hundred a week two grand a week And I bought my first DJ system cash from Joey Shake my sales rep over there at the Guitar Center Joey shake Oh, yeah, I thought of the intersection of it’s right there by the Mall of America down there in Minnesota I went down there to Guitar Center, and I remember paying I just BAM paid that no no debt And I bought a Mazda MPV with a hundred and eighty thousand plus miles on a maroon. I hand painted that thing, baby. And I’m telling you what, that’s how I roll. But you know what? I had to start somewhere. If you’re listening right now, your success is the is not going to be handed to you, will it? No, it won’t. I tell you what, if you’re waiting for your competitors to make your car payment, your house payment or, you know, take care of you fiscally, it’s not going to happen. I’ve called them. They never call me. I don’t get my email just the other day. Yeah, I mean, we got a very simple. So what we’re doing is this, we’re encouraging you, this whole show today is about passion and profit, but you’ve got to do step one. First, you’ve got to write it down. What is it? Two, then now we’re talking about what’s your budget? What do you want to make? What’s your goal? You’ve got to do it. You’ve got to do it. And then you break that down until you make it in bite-sized portions. You know, you go $100,000, I can’t. Now, 2,000 a week, oh, that’s better. And guess what? If you’re working five days a week, which you can work seven, but you can work five days a week and that’s about $400 a day. Okay, now we’re getting it down to, okay, I can see this. But Bernie Sanders wants me to work 34 hours a week. Now Thrivers, listen to this. When we come back, we’re going to be teaching you step number five. You got to teach a third grader how to do it. Once you can do something and you can sell it and you can scale it, you’ve got to be able to teach a third grader how to do it. Stay tuned. We’re talking about systems. In fact, we are back. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year, and I am glad to be here with the man, the myth, the legend, the guy who’s been helping Tulsa see 2020 for 25 years. Am I kidding? No, I’m not. It’s Dr. Robert Zellner. Sir, how are you? Hello, thrivers out there. Thanks for listening to the show. You like our new time, 12 to 2. It’s kind of fun. So we’re not drive time. Now it’s lunch time. You could technically drive at lunch time. You could technically. You get in your car and drive. Drive to Oklahoma Joe’s and get some Bernie and some baked beans. That’s my move over there. Tell me if this is weird or not. That’s my move. One move I like to do is kind of put my car in the idle mode. Yeah. And I like to kind of just drive around that parking lot slow. Oh yeah. And just kind of marinate and kind of enjoy my alone time during lunch. Is that weird? That’s not weird. And you know what’s Friday? It’s the Christmas season. Oh wow. I know you guys, everybody’s got, they’re excited. You may have a Christmas party to go to tonight. Just be careful. Uber, be safe. We want you next week to listen to the show. And check the expiration date on that cheese you’re getting. People are giving you all this holiday cheese. Check the expiration date. Make sure no one is regifting that mess. There are some regifters out there. Now you can’t ever get enough of a guy I like to call, well you don’t have to call me, it’s his name, because you can’t ever get enough of Mr. Merton Huff. This is the praise and worship leader for the Metropolitan Baptist Church. He’s on the show today and we’re talking about how to turn your passion into profits, how to turn your thing you’re passionate about into your full-time job. Now step five is you’ve got to teach a third grader how to do it. I mean once you’ve been able to find your thing that you do and you’ve been able to sell it and you’ve been able to scale it, now you’ve got to teach a third grader how to do it. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, third grader. That dude’s like, let’s see, third grader would be like eight years old? I don’t care. Maybe nine? The thing is, you’ve got to make it so simple that it’s duplicatable, that’s repeatable. And so Steve Jobs, that’s the guy who co-founded Apple, he was the CEO of Pixar, he says this, simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there you can move mountains. You have to teach an army of people how to do your system. So Mert, I want to ask you this. At the Metropolitan Baptist, you help work with the kids program, is that correct? Yes, we had a big annual Children and Youth Day back in October. And you had to teach a lot of kids, like an army of young kids. Yeah, it was almost a hundred kids. How to sing some songs. Yeah. What was the song you taught the kids? We did this one song by Kurt Franklin called Victory. Can you kind of play it for us a little bit? Yeah, it’s like, AO one, two, three, get up, we got victory. No weapon they throw at me. You know it won’t prosper. No, no, no. I just got laid off. I’m doing good. House ain’t even paid off. I’m doing good. Should be a free ride. I’m feeling good. All the time you think God is good. You can come down, down, down. Oh yeah. Don’t forget who’s in control. Walls are falling down, down, down. Get ready for the new Jericho. So you had to teach all these kids this song. Yeah, absolutely. You know what, I think you could teach me this song. I mean, I’m at least a third grader. Break it down. How did you do it? What was the first step? What was the first part you taught them? So the first thing I do is I let them hear it. Let them hear a couple times. We got it. We got it. Teach Zia and I. Teach us. So this is how you do it. Ayo one two three. Say that. Ayo one two three. Get the rhythm. Ayo one two three. Do it again. Ayo one two three. Watch the rhythm. Ayo one two three. Get up we got victory. Listen to the rhythm. Eh eh eh. Eh eh eh. You gotta break it up like that. So, I mean, you gotta really simplify. Simplify. Because you have so many different levels of gifts. Because you’re teaching a 36 year old man and a 53 year old man. 52 year old man. I’ll be, well, next year I’ll be 53. I mean, you’re, I would call you a liar for my gift. You look 27. You look 27. I’m not gonna do it. You have to simplify. Yeah. Absolutely. Otherwise it won’t multiply. You’ve got to because you’ve got so many different levels and everybody has to be able to understand it like you just said. Now the pastor at the church, Pastor Ray Owens, a lot of people would say, this is a good church and this is an issue that I have had with churches for years. And I’m going to tell you this, I had to make the switch to the Met and I’ll tell you what, I love church on the move and Pastor George is a master of taking a big idea and making it simple. But that praise and worship that you deliver is what really has just pulled me in. Since Carleton, when he switched churches when Higher Dean was shut down, I had to find a place that was kind of like it. But what Pastor Owens does well is he takes a complex idea and he breaks it down like fractions so that you can turn it into some action. He does that, he breaks it down. Why is it so hard from your, because there’s a lot of really talented music ministers out there, why is it so hard to teach a third grader how to do something that you can do? I mean, what’s the challenge with that? Why is it so hard for so many people to teach a third grader? Well, I think sometimes we assume that they should know. I think for me, that’s the thing. You assume that they should know. And if I’m 36 years old and somebody who’s 9 years old, I can’t assume that they know. So back to you, Zee. You’re teaching people now how to dilate a pupil, teaching people how to check a patient in. Why is it so hard to teach a functional college graduate how to properly treat and greet a patient? Bro, because they just, you know, bro, because they just know everything, bro. So why do they need to learn, bro? Common sense is not common, though. You have to make it into a system. Bro, I got this. Bro, really. I answer phones all the time, bro. I’m like a professional answering phone answer. I don’t need a script. It’s like you call me to say whatever floats. Just let me flow, bro. I got this. I got this. You hear this all the time. Yeah, we hear it all the time. And the thing about it is, is that I would rather have someone with a great attitude and no knowledge of an eyeball and hire them and teach them our way how to do it. You know what I’m saying? Mr. Chet Cajo back in the day, he taught me this. This is the guy who’s the president of Quick Trip. He says you hire character and you train skill. I repeat, you hire character and you train skill. And somebody’s listening right now, what’s happening is you’re hiring people who are lacking the character and you’re not investing the time needed to teach the skill. You’re trying to make it a short road. You’re trying to make it to the little, kind of, see it’s kind of like some people are looking for the quick path. They’re going, instead of hiring people of character and training skill, I’m gonna hire the highest skilled people I possibly can. And you know what? It’s hard to teach people how to stop doing things the wrong way once they become loyal to dysfunction. Absolutely. So you give me a high class person and I can teach them how to push the buttons. Now Thrivers, we come back. We’re going to teach you step number six. You want to know what step number six is? I’ll tell you what. You have to stay tuned to learn Supermove, step number six. All right Thrive Nation, welcome back to your Inspiration Superstation. You’re listening to Talk Radio 1170 during your midday, and my name is Clay. I’m the co-host with the Mo’ost, sent here to entertain and to educate you, to teach you how to become the most successful entrepreneur you can possibly be. And so, today I’m joined with the co-host with the Mo’ost, Dr. Robert Zellner. Sir, how are you? Thank God it’s Friday. Oh, it is. And speaking of God, we’ve got a wonderful guest on the show today. Speaking of God, nice segue. Wow, thank you. This guy is… I get whatever now and then. He helps the people at the Metropolitan Baptist Church enter into the presence of worship every Sunday. They’ve got two services, one at 9 a.m. The next one’s at 11, is that right? Yes, sir. And if people are looking for a church home, I’m telling you, if you’re looking for a church home, a place that can help you come alive, a place you can really connect, a place where the people, where people are just good people, you’ve got to go check out the Metropolitan Baptist Church. And we have captured their praise and worship leader. We have sequestered him here tonight. It is Mr. Merton Huff. Mr. Merton, how are you? What up, though? I’m good, man. How are you? I am excited to have you on the show. We’re talking about how to turn your passion into profits. And so this final little super move, step number six, is you’ve got to hire a Viking to manage your people. You’ve got to ultimately have somebody who holds people accountable. Dr. Z, I’m going to read you a notable quote. I want to have you unpack it for me. This is from Jim Rohn, the best-selling author, a motivational speaker. He passed away somewhat recently, but he says, discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment. Z, if someone’s listening right now and they’ve come up with something they’re passionate about, they’ve been able to turn it into their job, they’ve been able to sell it, now they’ve been able to scale it, now they’re able to teach it to third graders, but there’s dysfunction, there’s discord, no one’s doing their job. Help them, coach them, teach them what to do. Well, you’ve got to have the discipline. I tell you what, a lot of people out there, we call them wantrepreneurs. In other words, they’re always sitting around the coffee shop and they’re always telling their buddies or anybody or even the person maybe serving them their latte or their Christmas flavored beverage of choice. I’ll take a chance. They’re telling them about their passion. They’re telling them about their dream. They’re telling them what they want to do. Okay. And that’s good. That’s the first step. And that’s the day we’re talking about. I want to move ahead of my parents house, bro. That’s my main thing overall, bro. But you know what? What happens is, though, so you say, this is what I want to do. That’s great. That’s good. We’re fanning the flame of wanting to do something. Taking your passion. Get that going, hot embers. Boom, boom, boom, boom. But here’s the deal. And then that goal over here, sitting there, the idea that you get it done, the idea that you actually finalize that and make it into something, and what you have to have to get there is discipline. What does that mean? That means that you have to be purposeful. You have to say I have a schedule you have to say no No No, you’re wow Obi-Wan Kenobi tell us about that. Tell us the force It’s a small word But you’ve got to have it in your repertoire because you don’t want to get tied up and everybody else’s stuff You don’t have the the discipline to do your steps your steps. Yeah, you come up with your steps. We’ll help you with them. Day by day, week by week, and that discipline will get you across the bridge shuffling. I want to pitch this to Merton. I want to ask Merton his take on this because he’s doing praise and worship there every Sunday and you guys, your choir is on point. Oh, thanks man. These guys can get it done. But how many hours are you practicing? What kind of discipline, what kind of rehearsal happens behind the scenes to make that happen? I have to drill them a lot on the parts to make sure that, because you’ve got different levels of singers, so it’s a lot of drilling to make sure that they have it. A lot of times I’ll send them the part, like I’ll record it on my phone, I’ll send it to them to make sure each section has, I have section leaders. So I have somebody who sends all the parts to the center section, I have somebody who manages the alto section. I send it to the band and I say, hey, we have a band rehearsal that’s separate, the choir. But you practice until you, Thrivers, someone needs to write this down, you don’t practice until perfect, you practice until you can’t get it wrong. Absolutely. You’ve got to practice until you can’t get it wrong. And I’m just going to tell you this, with my team, an elephant in the room, it’s a men’s grooming lounge, and every Friday, if you want to come here at 8am and watch it, we do it, we train our team. And what happens is we want to have our team train for the big three. The elephant in the room. The big three? Yeah, when you come in for your haircut, your first haircut’s a dollar. But there’s a big three. We want to tell you about our membership. That’s thing number one. Two, if we are running behind for some reason, we want to be able to overcome that and make sure that you feel respected, and we care about you. Because again, about 2% of the time, 2% of the time we’re running behind and we want to be able to make you feel loved and appreciated while you’re there. We don’t want you to have that awkward, like you’re in an elevator with someone that you don’t know kind of weird mojo. And the third is we want to deal with an irate customer who we call a terrorist, who’s that one out of a hundred people who’s just nuts. You’re listening to The Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 1170. But Thrivers, what we want to do today is we want to help you wake up. Okay? We want to help you wake up. A lot of people, you want to turn your passion into profits, but you’ve been asleep for a while. You’ve been going through the motions of life, and we need to help you wake up. And so we have Merton on the show today, and Merton has agreed, our musical guest, has agreed to perform a song called Wake Up by John Legend. And Merton, are you ready? I’m ready. Let’s do it, man. Wake up, everybody. No more sleeping in bed. Here we go. No more back thinking time for thinking. You got a driver’s the world is saying so bad. What it used to be. There’s so much or in poverty. The world won’t get no better if we just let it be. The world won’t get no better. We gotta change it, yeah, just you and me. We gotta change it, Thrivers, here we go. Break up all the teachers, it’s time to teach a new way. Maybe then they’ll listen to what you have to say. Cause they’re the ones who’s coming up and the world is in their hands. When you teach the children, teach them the very best you can. The world won’t get no better, once we just let it be. No, the world won’t get no better. We gotta change it, yeah, just you and me. Oh yeah, we gotta change it, Martin. Yes sir, absolutely. Now I’m gonna tell you what, if you’re listening right now, and you have just a little bit of ember, I don’t care if you’re 40, I don’t care if you’re 50, I don’t care if you’re 60, I really do not care. I’m going to give you some examples. Do you know Ray Kroc, the guy who’s famous for franchising McDonald’s? He did not have any discernible success until his 50s. Do you know that? Do you know that the guy, Mr. Dyson, who made the Dyson vacuum, that guy struggled for over a decade. Do you know that Uber, Uber, Uber took the guy over five years to take off. You know Twitter took seven years? Do you guys know that Amazon, Jeff Bezos, he could not get funding from anybody, so his own mom and dad liquidated their savings, $300,000, and they funded him. Do you know that Walt Disney lost it all twice? Do you know Henry Ford lost it five times? Do you know that Dr. Z had to work at a job? Work at a job? A job? A job? He had to save all his money. It could be a silent J. It could be a ob. I don’t know. Do you know that Merton had to move from atlanta hotlanta to tulsa oklahoma to turn his dream into reality merton what advice would you have for anybody listening right now who says you know gosh i don’t know am i too old am i too old to start my music career am i too old to become that entrepreneur am i too old to become that person i want to be what encouragement would you have for him absolutely you’re never too old i heard a saying before they said the brick wall is only there to stop those who aren’t serious. So, hey, you got to keep going. If you’re running into a brick wall, you got to break it down. You got to do something to get around it or go over it or do something. And so it’s only there to stop you if you’re not serious. You got to keep going. The brick wall is only there to stop those who are not serious. Z, what encouragement do you have for somebody who’s stuck? What are maybe three things they can do? If they’re listening right now and they go, okay, I’ve got a little ember. I’m starting to get a little passionate. What are some things that they could do right now today? Well, I tell you, here’s what they can do right now. Ready? With Merton on the show and visiting the Met, I’ll just call it the Met, Church, with you a few weeks ago. If I don’t play this segment, I’m gonna feel bad about myself. This is in honor of the Met. You gotta, listen, you’re stuck! Hey, you gotta get online! There’s a thing called WWW. And you know what you gotta do? What’s that? You gotta go to Thrive15.com Yeah, dot com Come on, Thrive15.com What’s that? What is that? That’s your credit card Whoa Scribe it, enter it in for $19 That’s all How much? And what if I don’t have any money? What can I do? We got scholarships You have a scholarship? Uh huh And your military is free For free for military? Free, how’s that work? Free. And you get on thrive15.com for $19 a month, you can have business coaching excellence. And if you say, you know what, I love the online videos, but I want to come to an in-person workshop. We now have those available. By the way, they’re 15 hours over two days. And what if I can’t afford an in-person workshop? We have a time, we have an actual scholarship program available for you. It’s a scholarship program. And I’m telling you what, we’ve never denied a single person because they cannot afford it. And if you want in-person, one-on-one coaching for those that can afford it, we have that too. It is the world’s best business school and the world’s best business coaching platform. It is thrive15.com, Dr. Z. We took our passion, we sold it, we scaled it, we hired Vikings to manage it. Trust me, Clay, he’s a Viking. He’s even from Minnesota. Minnesota. Minnesota doing it. We did all the six steps we’re teaching you today and that’s why it’s successful. We know what we’re talking about. That’s why you’re listening to the show. Because with our practical steps, every day, 12 to 2, you’re going to make it. Here we go. Three, two, one, boom. 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 non-existent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has, by being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts and staying on top of those podcasts to really help with getting up on what they’re listing and ranking there with Google. And also we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, 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. Say that again. How much are we up? 411%. Okay, so 411% we’re up with our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now our closing rate is about 85% and that’s largely due to, first of all, our Google reviews that we’ve gotten. People really see that our customers are happy, but also we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one and done deal. It was a system that we followed with Thrive in the refining process. And that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals, more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. It’s incredible, but the reason why we have that success by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews. That way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists. Everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly, both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast like Jared had mentioned that has really, really contributed to our success. But that, like I said, the diligence and consistency in doing those in that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives. And also, you know, 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 business. And we were in a rut, and we didn’t know. Oh, sorry. The last three years, our customer base had pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah, and so we didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in. But Thrive helped us with that. You know, they implemented those systems, 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 going to take in order to really succeed. So, we just want to give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore. I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42 percent increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proof-and-turn-key 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 Lee Crocker, the head of Disney, with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day, he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers, and web developers. 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. 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 startups go from startup to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. 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 the most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. I was really most impressed with him is when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it, I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run and the guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right and anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate. navigate anytime I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or, uh, you know, navigating competition and, and, and, 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, um, uh, just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you, and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. 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 4 to 14 and I took this beautiful photo We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and Just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out Into systems into manuals and scripts and actually build a team So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to ten locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you times a thousand. Whoa! The Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13-point business systems that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. When we get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it It was a hollow nothingness and I wanted the knowledge and 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 Get Rich Quick, Walk On Hot Coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert, Zellner, and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses, system. When you do that research you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking what does it actually cost to attend an in-person, two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person, two-day interactive business workshop, all you got to do is go to thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available you got to do is go to thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you.