Entrepreneur | 6 Steps to Mastering the High Art of Management Followup

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to hear what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As the father of five, that’s 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. We started from the bottom and we’re so high. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Inspiration Station. This is your audio dojo of mojo. Many of you have begun to turn your automobile, the interior of your automobile, into a mobile classroom. This idea that you’re no longer driving down the road just saying to yourself, I can’t believe the traffic is terrible. You’re beginning to enlighten yourself. It’s almost become, Z, a dojo, a dojo of just auditory learning mastery. You’re learning entrepreneurship. Z, how exciting is it that people can now learn how to start and grow a business in their car? It’s very exciting and that’s what they’re doing. It’s not drive time for them anymore, it’s class time. So it’s like, oh, five o’clock, where’s my car, got to get in my car. And when they listen to the traffic report on where there’s the accident, they drive towards that because they’re like, this will slow me down even more. This guy can catch the entirety of the show. You know? Now here’s the deal, here’s the deal, Thrivers. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year. To my right, and we’ve got a guy by the name of Dr. Robert Zellner. I’m just going to read off some of the things he’s involved in. He has an auto auction. You can go to z66aa.com and check it out. It’s a real, thriving, automotive business. Then you can go check out Dr. Robert Zellner and Associates. It’s an eye care clinic. You can go to drzellner.com. You can check it out. It’s a real, thriving business. You can go check out his Rockin Z Ranch. You can check out Dr. Z’s Sleep Center, DrZs.com. I mention on this because we’re in a culture right now where there’s a lot of smoke and mirrors, charlatan people teaching you how to be successful, but they’ve never done it. And Dr. Z has been a guy who has been doing it. He hasn’t done a whole lot of PR, hasn’t sat there and you know done a whole lot of… Z hasn’t written 47 books like myself. I mean the guy has just been running businesses and doing it the right way And so sir, it’s an honor to take you away from the businesses for a few minutes here Just two days before Thanksgiving to have you on the show. Thank you for being here Well, I I’m glad to be here clay and we both have a passion for business coaching We both have that passion and the problem is there’s only so many hours in a day So it’s fun to not only have our thrive 15 platform where we have thousands of videos people can get on and learn from where we have our in-person workshops now here at Thrive 15 at world headquarters but we now also have this radio show which is a lot of fun but then also it’s archived at thrive timeshow.com yeah you miss an episode you miss a segment you got to go in the truck stop and run in and get your I see or whatever your drink of choices and run out you miss part of the show thrive timeshow.com they’re all archived on there and you can just binge watch or listen to as many as you want. I will say this, this week I talked to a young lady who lives in New Mexico who told me that her mother went to Thrivetimeshow.com and she listens to all of our podcasts. Her mom sent her one and said, hey, you should listen to this show. It’s very helpful for me and I think it would help you with your business. They’re wanting to start a sporting goods store and so now they’re listening. We have people all over the world listening. And one guy who is not only a faithful listener, but a guy who is a very successful Tulsa entrepreneur, basketball player turned coach, turned now the head of his own basketball facility where he mentors young kids on how to become successful basketball players, just like you and I mentor young entrepreneurs, teaching them how to become successful entrepreneurs. It’s Coach Calvert. Coach Calvert, how are you sir? I’m doing great. It’s good to be here with you guys here. I want to ask you, if somebody wants to, if they have a kid and their kid’s on the bench riding the pine, you know the whole deal? Riding the pine. Where they’re just, they’re a good kid, but they’re just riding that pine. They’re not playing. They’re not getting any playing time. Maybe they’re the eighth man on a team where you only five guys get to play on the court. Where can people get a hold of you and learn more about the SCORE Basketball Program? All you have to do is Google SCORE Basketball or Tulsa Basketball. You’ll find us there. It’s easy to find. Yeah, absolutely. And so today we’re talking about today the six steps to mastering the high art of management follow-up. Basically how to stop dropping the ball. And let me kind of coach you through this. If you have a business, here’s a scenario. You ask Billy to do something. You say, Billy, I need you to do ABC because we have a customer who will be here to pick it up today because today’s Tuesday and today’s the last day we’re open before Thanksgiving. So you’ve got to have all these things done. The client’s going to come by and pick up the stuff. So Billy says, Z, I’m going to get it done. I’ll do it. Boom. Yeah. So now the customer. And he’s probably, probably means that. Yeah. So now it’s like, you know, five o’clock, I mean, on a Tuesday, right before Thanksgiving, and a customer shows up, and Billy didn’t do the job. He dropped the ball. Oh, Billy. Exactly. And so now you’re, the customer’s going, Ham, I’m here to pick up my prints. You know, you’re a print shop. And you go, ah, Bill, yeah, sure, let me go check with Billy. And Billy goes, I can’t lie. I wanted to do it, but what had happened was I was very busy with all the Thanksgiving pageantry and the turkey, and I forgot. See, how often is it that people forget to do what they’re supposed to do and they drop the ball in business? How often? It happens a lot. It happens a lot. The more employees you have, the more it’s going to happen. I remember back in the day, I would go through the day, and I didn’t want to stop the merry-go-round to say, oh, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong. So throughout the day, I would make Post-it notes. I would do Post-it notes. And I would just leave a trail of Post-it notes behind, you know, for people to find that. So it was a big thing when they got through the day without a Post-it note. That’s a celebration. I’m going to brag on Eric Chupp, one of our show producers. He’s here in the room here. Hey, Chupp, make sure you bring some pies for Thursday’s show. Now, the Thrived Time show, see, it’s live every day. So what happens is we have to record the show and get the show, we have to record the show and the show has to be aired for you, the listener, it has to happen, you record it, then you listen to it. And if he doesn’t follow all these steps right, all these checklists, then what happens is, is you turn on the radio and we’re not here. And he has to round up all the equipment, make sure everything’s working, the microphones, the sound, the lights, everything that we do to make it live on Facebook Live, there’s a lot of steps. And you know what, if he drops the ball, it’s very obvious because it’s a live show. Now for a lot of businesses though, it’s not as obvious, Z. If someone drops the ball, people don’t find out until later. And so I’m gonna give you a little fun factoid. November 26th is what they call Small Business Day, and Z, I don’t like that day. Why, why is that? You’re listening to the Thrashtime Show on Talk Radio 1170. Well here’s the deal. American Express launched Small Business Day. The Senate unanimously passed a resolution to support Small Business Day. President Obama has even talked about Small Business Day, but I don’t like it. And I’ll tell you why. Tell me why. Because your business won’t stay small unless you’re terrible at executing. Ooooooh. So if you continue to do a bad job year after year, then you’re going to continue to be small. No, no No, I’m gonna fight you in this can we pick a fight right now? Yeah, let’s get into it. Let’s argue It’s it know if your business is bad. You’ll go out of business. Oh if your business is just good You’ll stay flat. Okay. We’re here to coach you up on how to make your business great. So DJ connection is an example DJ connection I won the award back in the day from the Small Business Administration as being the entrepreneur of the year. Congratulations. Thank you very much. I was honored to receive it, but years later I wasn’t really in the category. I couldn’t qualify because of the number of people that worked with us. We had grown. Yeah. And Coach Calvert, your business, you started just you and your wife. You started this business. You’re working out of a, is it Champions? Is that right? Yep. And now you have hundreds of kids that come to score basketball, you’re kind of like the region’s largest basketball coaching facility. Is that right? Yes, and I’m the perfect example of that because I stayed flat-lined for many years, about 15 years until I got, I started thinking, man, I’ve got to get better at this business side. I knew I was great at the basketball side, but I was doing everything wrong business side. And now, though, you get most of your businesses from word of mouth, people finding you on Google, people finding you through Facebook ads. For the entrepreneur listening right now whose business is staying perpetually small and people are forgetting to do the daily checklist, what advice would you have or what are the struggles that you’ve had personally as a business owner? What advice would you have for someone who’s going, people keep dropping the ball in my business? Well, number one is make changes. Don’t stay the same. Assume that you’ve got changes, things that you can do to be better. And don’t be afraid of those changes. Don’t be afraid of those mistakes. You can’t be afraid of failing, which at times I’ve got to admit I was. For instance, I was terrible at billing. Just terrible. I had the wrong person in billing. I remember that. I wasn’t doing it right. I remember that. You used to make fun of me all the time. You would criticize me. I didn’t criticize. I never made fun of. I think you wanted to fire myself. Of course, I was the business, so you couldn’t fire me. But yeah, I had to make changes and I had to make them intelligently, step by step, go through and look at every part of my business that I could. Now here’s the deal, Thriver. Step number one, if you want to teach your team to stop dropping the ball, step number one on this short Tuesday Super Show before Thanksgiving, embrace that quality and quantity are not enemies. Z, so many people believe that you can’t have high quantity and high quality. And if that were to be true, then as Disney World got bigger, it would get worse. If that were true, Southwest Airlines would start… I know, that constant drives me crazy. They say it all the time. They say, quality and quantity. I’m more focused on quality. I’m not focused on quantity. Sure, so Southwest Airlines doesn’t care if their planes land or get there safely. Or on time. They only care about quantity. Go ahead and tackle that idea. Yeah, exactly. So, you said it perfectly. Walt Disney is so big, we’ve got 50,000 people coming in monthly, or I don’t know what the numbers are. They have 40,000 people working there. This just in from Forbes. This is a verified fact. Okay. Over one million people walk through the gates of Walt Disney World per week. Wow, okay, per week. Per week. I was way off. Sorry, Mr. Disney. But the thing about it is the idea that that many people come through and you go, well, it’s just too many to have to give all of them a quality experience. So, you know, we’re just going to we know we’re going to fail more now because of that. That is just the wrong mindset. And I hear all the time in business people say, I don’t want to grow too fast because basically, like if I if Roy doesn’t actually install every granite countertop himself, then it can’t be Roy’s granite countertops LLC anymore, you know because we focus on quality not quantity. Yeah focus on doing ourself. Oh, yeah When I talk to other doctors and other sometimes optometrist sometimes physicians and other in other areas And that’s the thing that they say they go. Oh, I don’t you know, we can’t see too many patients because we’re focused on quality I’m more focused on these you say it like this. I’m more focused on quality. See I was as an optometrist I care about the human eye the ocular capacity the cornea many You have to document them. You have to hire the right people. You have to implement the things that we teach during the show and you can. You can have both. I’m telling you, you can. Quality and quantity, Thrivers. You can have that growth. Step number two, turn your entire system into a visual workflow. Thrivers, stay tuned. This is a special pre-Thanksgiving edition. I’m going to be back in a minute. I’m going to be back in a minute. I’m going to be back in a minute. I’m going to be back in a minute. I’m going to be back in a minute. I’m going to be back in a minute. I’m going to be back in a minute. I’m going to be back in a minute. I’m going to be back in a minute. I’m going to be back in a minute. I’m going to be back in a minute. I’m going to be back in a minute. I’m going to be back in a minute. I’m going to be back in a minute. I’m going to be back in a minute. I’m going to be back in a minute. I’m going to be back in a minute. I’m going to be back in a minute. I’m going to be back in a minute. into a visual workflow. Thrivers, stay tuned. This is a special pre-Thanksgiving edition. Hello Thrive Nation, welcome back to this, it’s the inspiration station for entrepreneurs. You see, as an entrepreneur, what happens is you want to start or grow a business. And in fact, according to Forbes, 57% of you listening right now, that’s you. You want to start or grow a business. to a workshop, maybe you went to seminars, but you’re just not getting that practical business school without the BS training that you’ve been looking for. You’re hearing a lot of things, you’re reading a lot of books, but you’re not getting that real stuff behind the stuff. And so my name is Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year. If you Google me, you’ll see that I’ve been involved in quite a few industries from real estate to photography to Entertainment to marketing to PR to that’s what I do I just do businesses and I am joined here with the guy has been sort of my business mentor kind of my business Yoda, but he’s too beautiful to be Yoda if you’re on Facebook live. He’s really my bro. It’s dr. Robert Zellner, sir How are you? I’m so excited to be here on Tuesday, but Jim, the problem is Tuesday I’m only doing a one hour show. It’s a very small show. It’s a quick show. We gotta go fast. We gotta deep dive in because people want practical tips on how to start and grow their business. So we’re gonna go 90 miles an hour today here, Coach, with Coach Don Calvert. Coach Don Calvert, this guy is a local Tulsa entrepreneur. He’s the founder of Score Basketball. We’re talking today about the six steps to mastering the high art of management follow-up. We’re trying to prevent somebody on your team from dropping the ball. So step number two, you must turn your entire system into a visual workflow, whether that be on a whiteboard, a sheet of paper, but everyone on your team has to know what you’re including with your system or your service, your product. Everybody on your team has to know. It has to be documented somewhere. You can’t just be going out of your head. You must work to have these things included on a piece of paper so that your team doesn’t miss a step and drop the ball. So Coach Calvert, I want to ask you this. You have a Christmas camp upcoming soon. Is that right? A Christmas camp? Yep. And when is the Christmas camp? It is after Christmas. I believe it’s the 27th through the 31st. And what all do you include in the Christmas camp? What’s all included in that thing? It is scheduled out every day where we do ball handling drills, dribbling drills, but then we also add in attacking the basket, jumpers off the dribble in the pass, developing the footwork. Parents always want kids to get more aggressive. I want my kids to be more confident. So those are the two things we really emphasize is got to be aggressive, got to be confident. Who should be attending this Christmas camp? Who should be doing that? Well, really everyone from five years old up to 18. They’re with They are with their own age group and we will make it as complicated and as easy as we need to be. So for anybody from ages 5, you are saying to what? 18, after high school. They are the ones who should be attending this. We will have 70, 80, 90 kids there and they will have the best workouts they have ever had. And why have you had to take the time to put it onto a brochure? Why did you have to do that as opposed to just you verbally telling other coaches what they’re supposed to be doing? Well, I didn’t want to just wing it. We want everything to be professional. We want everything to be on time, just as hard working, as crisp working as it can be. I don’t like downtime. I don’t like sloppiness. I want everything to be sharp. Now Dr. Z, for those of you watching on Facebook Live, the man who left the box that rocks. Yes, I left the Box that Rocks. Took his headphones off, leaves, throws me into a mental conundrum. I’m going, what? I know, I wish I could have watched you while I was doing my thing. It is stressful. And you went over here. What did you bring into the background on Facebook Live? I’m telling you what, you know, some people go, oh, are these guys, are they real, are they legit? Is this a real thing, number one, you know? Number two, so that’s why we have the Box that Rocks. You can see our studio, you can see our headquarters of Thrived Empire, okay? And just today, you were showing me how you whiteboarded a new policy procedure that we’re going to do for our in-person workshops. And I rolled it up here so everybody on Facebook Live can see that we are putting, like I like to say, putting our money where our mouth is. We are implementing the things that we’re telling you to do on this show. We’re actually doing the things we’re telling you about to think you know when I did this too, by the way, I did this between 3 a.m. And 9 a.m. Because I needed to be able to think Clearly without interruptions or distractions for about six hours So things called humans that do you don’t want them messing with because people always come in and ask questions They’re like hey, are we getting off for Thanksgiving? There’s somebody who draped my coffee, you know, I’m trying to get this done. So Thrivers, if you’re looking at this on Facebook Live, what we found out is there are over the last really four years, three years, I’ve always had been successful as a business consultant since I sold a few of my businesses, coaching businesses. You’re listening to The Thrive Show on Talk Radio 1170. And Z’s always had a lot of success in his businesses. What’s happened is there’s thousands of people who are wanting to come out to our workshops. And when you come out to a thrive15.com workshop, I have two promises that I can make to you. One is every single person listening right now, you can afford it because we have a scholarship program in place. If you’re struggling financially, it’s both of you and I grew up financially challenged. We don’t have a bunch of money. We’ve started from nothing. So we’ve made it affordable. So if you call and you call for pricing and if you can’t afford it, we will make it work for you. I’m telling you, we’re going to make you an offer that you can’t refuse. So we do that. But the second thing is it’s practical, detailed, entrepreneurial training. And so we had to make a whiteboard to map out the sequential events, the step-by-step processes that we’re going to be implementing during our workshops. Because I’ve done, if you come to Tull’s and you shout at me for a day, I do a workshop every hour on the hour, but if you come to a workshop here starting here soon when we have these interactive workshops for people from all over the planet fly in, we have these people already booking tickets. It’s a different thing. There’s 50 people in the room now, not five people. Yeah. So it’s a different thing. We had to build a workflow. We had to do it and we did it on the whiteboard and that’s how you do it. You put it down because sometimes you think something, but when you put it down or you write it out, then you look at it and go, oh wait, that can’t work. I can’t do that thing before this thing, so I gotta flip those things. Yeah, oh wait a second, and I gotta add this thing, because you can’t go from this thing to that thing without a thing in the middle. So I’m gonna tell you one thing that I discovered by building this workflow. After working with thousands of customers, thousands of coaching clients all over the world, I discovered that most entrepreneurs have one problem that has to be solved first, Z, before, or otherwise, everything else doesn’t matter. And you know what that problem is? Sales. Oh, yeah. If you can’t sell, your business will go to… It’s not going to work. Well, I looked at the schedule, and for those of you listening today, Thanksgiving, we’re actually going to do the show, and we’re having the steps of increasing your sales on Thanksgiving. So just a little teaser for Thursday coming up two days from now. So while you’re eating your pie, Chuck, by the way, make sure to bring us a pie that day. While you’re eating your pie, it’s pie, so we drive Thrive Time at pie time. Thrive Time at pie time. Now, step number three, step number three to keep your team from dropping the ball. You have to build a checklist for everything. Now, coach, I will give you the floor to go off here. Try to keep your bathroom clean, checklists, try to get the teammates to keep the bathroom clean. Why is it so hard to keep people, to hold people accountable to implementing the checklists after you’ve actually made them? Well, for one, as an owner, I have to be willing to challenge them and to confront them. A lot of people don’t like that tension that you have with employees, and I’ve had to fire two or three people because they weren’t doing the checklists. And you want to be a nice guy, you want to care about them, and I really do, but there comes a point where enough’s enough, and I’ve got checklists now for everything. Z, are you excited about holding people accountable? Does it stress you out? I mean, when you have to hold someone accountable to implementing their checklists, I mean, does it wear you out? Do you jump into that? Are you afraid of it? How do you deal with it, my friend? At first you did, but then after a while you learn to embrace it. And you know that every great farmer, every great rancher, every great vineyard owner knows that when you see that plant, you go in there and you cut some of the limbs off, if you prune it, it seems mean. I mean, you’re cutting living stuff off of it. But the next year, you have such an increase of your harvest that you go, you know what? That was the right thing to do. Thrivers, stay tuned. Thrive Time Show. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show during your drive time home where we’re going to give you more knowledge bombs per capita than you’re going to find on any other business radio show. So oh wow, I’ve got to get more bomb, I’ve got to crank up my bomb a little bit there Zee, I’ve got to get more, here we go, there it is. There, that’s more bomb. That’s a knowledge bomb. 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, a guy who really, Zee, you have more knowledge bombs per capita than almost any other man I’ve ever been around. I know, that’s why you creeped on me. I mean, before creeping was like acceptable. I mean, now it’s like, you know, book face and MySpace, all those things you do. All those things you kids use these days. Let me explain this real fast to you. Now if you think a lady’s attractive and you’re trying to, you know, learn more about her, you’re wanting to date her, you’re trying to woo her. So people go on to Facebook and they’ll friend her and people friend almost anybody now who like it’s almost like if ten people If you share ten acquaintances almost anyone accepts the friend request on Facebook. Yeah, so now you’re trolling out You’re looking at her family photos. You’re like her mom seems like a nice lady, and she’ll probably become like her mom Maybe that’s the moon. That’s that’s that’s the acceptable creepage. That’s now pot happening Yes, but back in the day before was a before it was acceptable, Z, I was doing some serious creepage in your optometry clinic and it was not socially acceptable. Yeah, well, your lovely wife worked there and you would show up to pick her up, you would show up and then finally you came earlier and earlier and you’d be hanging around more and more and you’d be kind of snooping around and then you started and then you did the move. Did the move. Hey, can we do lunch sometime? And I’m like, yeah, sure, whatever. And then of course, he was like, hey, can we do, remember we talked about doing that lunch and pretty soon you just kind of wore me down. You wore me down, probably like you did Vanessa, your wife, that’s how you got out of it. When you’re a two like me and you score a 10 like her, you got to do the wear down method. You got to do the wear down method. And then we did lunch and then we started the little mentoring and it’s been fun. I’ll tell you what, it’s been great having you in my life and I’m just so proud of you and the successes you’ve had. Now, look at you. Now, you’re kind of a big deal. Well, here’s the deal, Thrivers. If you’re listening right now and you want to build your business and take it to the next level, you’ve got to get detailed. You’ve got to get specific. In the background on Facebook Live, you can see the makings of a very detailed workflow that we’re building right now. Soon, we’re going to be turning this into a Photoshop document on Monday called a one sheet that will then be a usable document by our team. It will be a laminated usable document and it starts off here. But coach I want to ask you, over the years as you’ve grown Score Basketball, talk to me about a checklist that you’ve implemented that really has helped you and taken some of the stress out of your brain. Probably a good one is with the receptionist. I used to stress over what I wasn’t getting done or what I might forget. And since I’ve done my checklist I don’t worry about that kind of thing anymore. With our receptionist, for instance, she’s much more than a receptionist. She checks the mail. She makes sure all the phone calls she makes is done. She makes sure the scheduling is up to date, who’s showing up, who hasn’t paid. She’s got a big, huge checklist that she gets done every night. And you literally will have hundreds of people for the Christmas camp you have every year signing up. Yes. And she has to answer the phone. And it gets very complicated if you don’t have somebody that’s there taking care of every little thing. For anyone who’s listening right now and they say, look, my kid, his skills in basketball need to be improved. My daughter’s got a weak left hand. My son can’t get to the hoop quick enough. He can’t shoot off the dribble. He doesn’t do well with the jump shot. We need help with the different basketball ball handling skills. How can they find out more about you and how can they get into this legendary Christmas basketball camp? Well you can go to scorebball.com, easy to find and all your questions will be answered on there. You can call that number which is 918-955-7160 and you can find all about the camp. Now Thrivers, Coach Calvert will never oversell himself. He’s probably one of the most, America’s most humble humans. I will tell you this though, I know of dozens and dozens of kids out there throughout Tulsa who went to score be ball calm They went on the website and they discovered wow this guy is coached countless players who’ve gone on to play division one sports and by the way That’s not normal and the players come back and say the training I received at score basketball is what allowed me to play at the next level it allowed me to Practice and get my skills to that next level and I’m just telling you, scorebball.com, it’ll change the skill development of your players significantly. You don’t want to miss out on the Christmas camp. Check it out. Now, step number four, fix your connection points by focusing on execution, not motivation. This is something I’m going to give you a notable quotable, and I’m expecting you to just unleash a canon of knowledge. Here we go. Two notable quotables. One, this comes from James Heskett with the Service Profit Chain book from Harvard Business School. He says, being nice to people is just 20% of providing good customer service. The important part is designing systems that allow you to do the job right the first time. All the smiles in the world aren’t going to help you if your product or service is not what the customer wants. Z, why do you have to get serious about making checklists and quit having motivational meetings with your staff? Eventually, you’ve just got to focus on them getting stuff done. Why? Well, because you want to get stuff done. You want to provide the service or the thing that makes you the money. You see, that’s what we’re all about here. And if you don’t do it right, then you have to deal with the consequences of that. And that is, well, Clay, I read something the other day that really troubled me. Okay. And guess what percentage of businesses start and then they fail. Well startups, I believe according to Forbes, this just in, 9 out of 10 startups are going to fail according to Forbes, I believe. Yeah. The one I read was 80%. That’s not good. That’s 8. That’s 8. 8. I wouldn’t call you a liar for one, by the way. So, but that’s our goal on this show is to say, hey listen folks, we know you have a passion, just like Coach here had a passion for basketball, and he said it beautifully in the segment before this, he said, you know what, I was really good at teaching basketball, I wasn’t good at running a business, and we’re here to be your business coach. You tune in to the Thrive Time show, you sign up on thrive15.com, and guess what, we’re going to help coach you up. It just works, and I’m going to tell you this Thrivers, this is another notable quotable for you, this is from Atul Gawande. He says, the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly. He’s got more to say. And Thrivers, if you want to make this Thanksgiving or, you know, potentially the best Thanksgiving of your life because you’re so thankful about these new systems that you’ve learned to start and grow a business, you want to stay tuned. Thrive Time Show on your Drive Time Home. Super Tuesday. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to your inspiration station. It’s the Thrive Time Show during your drive time home. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year, and you are listening to Tulsa’s only local business radio show. It’s the Thrive Time Show. It’s a business school without the BS. And yes, you are in for a treat. You are joined here with Dr. Robert Zellner. Dr. Z, how are you, sir? I am fantastic on this Tuesday. The only problem is it’s like Wednesday. We don’t have two hours, we only have one hour. We gotta go 90 miles an hour. We gotta pack a lot of stuff into one hour. We gotta just squeeze it in there. And we brought in a guy who’s a very successful Tulsa entrepreneur. Coach Calvert is on the program today. We got a lot to get into. But I wanna recap what we already went over before we get into the next steps. So we’re talking about the six steps to mastering the high art of management follow-up. Basically, it’s how do you get your people on your team to do what they’re supposed to do. Step number one, you got to embrace that quality and quantity are not enemies. A lot of people on your team are saying, well, we don’t want to grow any bigger because it’s hard for us to remember to clean the bathrooms. That’s dumb. Okay. Step number two, turn your entire system into a visual workflow. If you’re watching on Facebook live right now, you can see the visual workflow. It is a specific linear step-by-step system. You got to put it on a whiteboard. It’s time-consuming. I did it this week for our Thrive 15 conferences. People are coming out for workshops. Hundreds of people are coming out, and we need to make a process for it because otherwise it’s going to get awkward when many people come here and there’s not enough seating capacity. No, seriously, we have more seating capacity we’re putting in, more lighting’s in. We’re doing a lot of changes to make it to accommodate all the new people. Step number three, you gotta build a checklist for everything. You have to build a checklist for everything. For someone who needs to hear it again, you need to build a checklist for everything. Step number four, fix your connection points by focusing on execution, not motivation. Connection points are where Billy is supposed to do step one and Bobby is supposed to do step two. In our videography company we used to have called Epic Photos back in the day. We would shoot, someone has to shoot the video footage of the wedding, but then someone else has to edit it and then someone else has to mail it to the bride and groom. That’s three connection points. And so Z, if you’re not careful, you can end up having over and over and over meetings, the same meeting repetitively, over and over, always focused on motivation, but you’re not having any specific improvement. And, Z, why is it so dangerous for entrepreneurs to say busy, feeling like they’re getting traction or feeling like they’re having success, when they’re really just having endless motivational meetings about the same topic and not seeing any improvement at all? Oh, Billy. That’s what happens. You’re like, oh, Billy, you can do it. You can do it. Billy’s going to look at you going, I want to do it. You want to do it? I want to do it. You want to do it? I want to do it. I want to do it. I want to do it boss. I want to do it boss. I want to do it boss. And then they don’t follow up and say, but I don’t know what to do. So you have to focus on the checklist. You have to focus on the execution. You have to focus on the getter done. That sounds boring. And just like you said earlier, you know, just like that notable quotable was earlier, being pleasant and nice to their… Yes, it’s also necessary, but just being nice and not knowing what to do, that’s just frustration. Atul Gawande, this is a guy who is the author of Checklist Manifesto, a surgeon, and oh by the way, a professor at the Harvard Medical School, he studied surgeons. In his book, if you read it, it will blow your mind. He studied surgeons who didn’t use a checklist. And they found, this is really scary statistics if you get a chance to read his book, they found that in almost a third of the cases of patient infection caused, but a patient goes in for surgery and there’s an infection that causes death or serious illness, it’s caused by somebody not using a checklist, aka skipping a step. And so he said passionately in his book, the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably. Good checklists, on the other hand, are precise. They are efficient to the point, and easy to use even in the most difficult situations. They do not try to spell out everything. A checklist cannot fly a plane. Instead, they provide reminders of only the most critical and important steps, the ones that even the most highly skilled professionals could miss. Good checklists are above all practical. So step number five, every time there’s a problem, ask yourself if it’s a system problem Z or a human problem. Why do you have to do that Z? Well because here’s the difference. If it’s a system problem, you need to change the system. You need to change your steps. You’ve got your checklist wrong. You need to improve upon the system’s correct and you just have a guy there doing jackassery, then you have a different situation. You’ve got to fix that person, coach them up, motivate them, or you know what? Fire them. Z, I have a very negative story I’m going to share with you on this super abbreviated Tuesday. We’ve got to go fast. Here we go. On April 20th, 2010, the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill began. After the Deepwater Horizon oil rig sank to the ocean’s floor, the oil continued to flow out of the earth into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days. 87 days. Later in November of 2010, the United States settled criminal charges against BP, because British Petroleum agreed to pay them $4.5 billion in fines. Now, this just in, here’s a notable quotable from the CEO. Tell me how this feels to you as a consumer, a person who’s an American citizen who likes to enjoy a clean Gulf of Mexico. Tell me how you hear, how you, what is, how you would react to his quote. He says, the first thing to say is I’m sorry. We’re sorry for the massive disruption it caused their lives. There’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back. Tony Hayward, the former CEO of British Petroleum. As a consumer or as an American citizen, when you hear that your coastline was destroyed due to somebody not following systems, are you sympathetic? Do you forgive him easily? Are people still mad that oil spilled for 87 days? Is he? Oh, they’re still mad. It’s an unfortunate thing. And as a boss, he did the right thing. He stepped up and guess what? He took ownership of it, and that’s what you have to do as a boss. You know, when your employee doesn’t follow the checklist, when your employee just has a bad day and is kind of being an idiot, guess what? You get to absorb all the negativity of that. I absolutely am a big fan of BP. I’ve read a lot of case studies about some great things they do, but I’m just telling you this. The customer is the boss, and they’re not going to be forgiving when someone skips a step. It’s all about execution. It is. Bottom line, and as the owner, you have to own it when things don’t get done. Now step number six, you must replace or fix the biggest limiting factors. Now Lee Cockrell, the former executive vice president of Walt Disney World, who’s one of our Thrive15.com mentors, he says, when you do hard things, life gets easier. Coach Calvert, I want to ask you this. As you’ve grown your basketball facility to the point where you’re no longer the one who coaches every kid, how hard is it for you to move on when people don’t want to do their job? How hard has it been for you to kind of learn that that idea? Oh, I had to do one of the most impossible thing is with all my booking and everything I had my wife doing it. Hmm. It is a dumbest mistake. I ever made really should not have been doing that She’s very creative. She does all these great things, but she was the wrong person I had to let her go and it was my fault. That was the hardest one. Is he a tyrant there. Oh, you’ve heard of this before? Yeah, I was. Oh, it’s your wife. Then I had to let this nicest, the nicest lady, oh she was so nice and she was young married and she stopped doing her job and she was complaining to the people and it’s like I really liked her, but I had to let her go. Wow, and now I will just say this if you’re listening right now, a lot of business owners, almost everyone listening right now, either your wife works with you or your husband works with you. Because when you start a small business, you’re working out of your garage. You your brother’s helping you, your cousin’s helping you. Someone’s helping you. And I want to tell you, one of the cruelest things that you can do unintentionally is to keep somebody in a situation where they’re not being successful just because they’re your spouse, your neighbor, your cousin, whatever. Z, ultimately, you have to look at your biggest limiting membrane, your biggest limiting factor. You have to move on, don’t you? You have to. I mean, you have to take a hard look at that, and it’s the toughest thing to do. Coach, you’re right. I mean, especially when it’s someone you care about, someone that’s in your life, someone that has access to you, you know, something like a family member, perfect example, and you’re like, you know what? You don’t really have the skillset. And you owned it. And you said, you know what? It ultimately was my fault because I knew her, and you put her in a place where she needed precision, she needed accounting, she needed a different skill set. She’s over here creative and over here doing this stuff really well, but, you know, the detailed stuff was not her thing and you gave her to do it. And so she would probably was happier once that all transpired and she got out of it. Totally relieved. Totally relieved. Totally changed everything. Now, Thrivers, if you’re listening right now and you’re saying to yourself, you’re going, you know what? I am not content with where I am right now. I really, really want to improve my business this year. I’m just, I’m just tired of every year my business being capped at either my personal production or some limit because I’m just gonna tell you this, I am a believer in Jesus Christ and I don’t believe that God has put some limitations saying such-and-such dry cleaning is now capped at 2.3 million per year because that is what I want to do. No, it’s not a supernatural force. It’s just you either can’t scale because the law of the lid is, you’re being limited. You have a lid on your business because you don’t have systems, you don’t have scalable processes. There’s something that you don’t know how to do that’s keeping you from growing. And so Zee and I have two solutions for you. One, you can come out to a thrive15.com in-person workshop at the 20,000 square foot thrive15.com world headquarters here in Jinx, America. The number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. We are Jared and Jennifer Johnson. We own Platinum Pest and Lawn and are located in Owasso, Oklahoma. And we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah. So what we want to do is we want to share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now. I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminex, they’re both 1.3 billion dollar companies. They both have two to three thousand 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 listening 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 Pest and Lawn company in the Tulsa area. And that’s really helped with our conversion rate. And the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411%. Okay, so 411% we’re up with our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now, our closing rate is about 85%. And that’s largely due to, first of all, like our Google reviews that we’ve gotten, people really see that our customers are happy. But also, we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one and done deal. It was a system that we followed with Thrive in the refining process. And that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals and more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. And 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, that way 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 is of the diligence and consistency and doing those and 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 has pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah, and so we didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in. But Thrive helped us with that. They implemented those systems, they taught us those systems, they taught us the knowledge that we needed in order to succeed. Now it’s been a grind, absolutely it’s been a grind this last year, but we’re getting those fruits from that hard work and the diligent effort that we’re able to put into it. So again, we were in a rut, Thrive helped us get out of that rut. And if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s gonna take in order to really succeed. So, we just wanna give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore, I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42 percent increase, month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proof and turnkey marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983, and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello, my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with like Lee Crockwell, head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with like Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours on the day-to-day. He does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, graphic designers, and web developers. They run 160 companies every single week. Think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. In the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks he’s also doing The Awakened Americatours. Every six to eight weeks he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13 step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires helping them grow their companies. So I’ve seen guys from start-ups go from start-up to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So, amazing guy. Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. That’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that we became friends. My most impressive thing was when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it, I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. And anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate. Anytime I’ve got nervous or worried about how to run the company or navigating competition and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. 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. Right, this is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old team and by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from four to 14, and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past, and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman, so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts, and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you times a thousand. The Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the 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 system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses, or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s gonna be the best business workshop ever, and we’re gonna give you your money back if you don’t love it. We 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 gotta 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 affordable for you.