Entrepreneur | Business Startup 101 | Recruit Stars and Fire Idiots + How To Live Your Best Life Now

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 get 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. Alright, we are back with phase 9 of Business Startup 101, Recruit Stars and Fire Jerks, Idiots and Terrorists. So we’ll start off with a little notable quotable. A level three business is systems reliant, with a winning management team in place and strong internal controls that allow the business to run smoothly and effectively, independent of any one person. At this point, you truly have built a business, not a self-employed job. The business runs smoothly and your clients look to the business, not the owner, to fulfill its promises. Found that out of scale by Jeff Hoffman and David Finkel. That book is right on your desk. It is awesome. Such a good book. Everyone needs to buy that book, okay? So the main thing is, once you have these systems tight, you’ve got them right, you’ve nailed it, you’re ready to scale it, you’ve got to understand the human component. And so, if you have exact, specific process that works and you have bad people doing it, you’re not going to have any success. I’ll give you an example in our own photography company. We have a call script that works. We have a way to get leads that works. We have a way to deliver photos that work. We have great people in many positions. We have great photography systems. We have great equipment. We have the good, but every single time, I repeat this, every single time now that we have great systems that there’s a problem, it’s always a people problem. You need to write that down. You need to be thinking about that. When you have a tight system, it’s always a people problem. Okay? So we have this one lady, and she’s probably going to watch this episode, so it’s good for her. Michaela, where are you at? Hi, Michaela. Michaela. She is, she has high integrity. She does what she’s supposed to do, and she doesn’t work as unto men. She works as kind of like a form of worship, or she works as under her, she sets her own standard. It’s like she’s, you know, if you’ve been to the end of the Bible, there’s a verse that talks about how you’re supposed to work as under the Lord. If you’re not somebody who values the Bible, that’s fine. But the point is, you want to work like your boss is always watching. And because she does that, anything that she does, that any system that I ask her to do, or any system I ask her to execute, she always does it right because she’s good people. There was another guy who we let go about six months ago who couldn’t get anything right. Anytime he did anything it just would not work. I’m not booking anything. I’m calling all day. I’m not booking anything. He edits stuff. It’s wrong. It’s late. The computer doesn’t work. He can’t figure it out. All the video files are late for wedding videos. All the photos are screwed up. He’s always late, missing deadlines. He can’t figure it out. He’s always running behind. He’s always stressed. He’s always angry because he’s an idiot. And so you got to fire people like that. You got to fire people that are idiots. Because I’m telling you, I don’t care how great your system is, if you have idiots it won’t work. So you’ve got to first focus on making a great system. So some of you watching right now have an A-level system with D-level people. Some of you watching right now have A-level people and a D-level system. You have A-level people, D-level system. Or the inverse. Or the reverse. You know, if you have a great system and bad people, not really a good deal. If you have a great system, bad people, you have bad people, great system, either way, you’ve gotta make sure you have both, but start by building your systems, because great people don’t wanna work somewhere where there’s horrible systems. All right, so we’ve got seven steps we’ll get into. Do it. We’re gonna get into about recruiting stars, because that’s what you’re gonna wanna do. Bang. All right, step one, when there is a problem with execution, your system, ask yourself, did the person not know what to do, or do they not want to do what they know they need to do? Always ask the question. When you find somebody who’s not doing the system right, just stop and say, hey did you not know what to do or did you choose to not do what you knew you’re supposed to do? And get people to benefit that out. I mean if someone makes a mistake, there’s probably they didn’t know what to do a lot of times at first, but if you if they do know what to do, they’ve watched the videos, they’ve had the trainings, you’ve met with them, and they just choose not to do it We have a guy at the elephant in the room or the business we own who just for the I had to I had to fire Him the guy literally every single week. I go. Hey, where did our customers come from this week? It’s like I forgot to track it. Can I have more training on how to time block and I’m like Okay, I’ll do it one time next time. I just forgot to track and I have more training on time manage I just struggle with time management or I have a late problem or I didn’t know or there was a miscommunication. The human race, we only have three moves we do by the way. Here we go. There was a miscommunication. I did thought you said something else. That’s one. Two, I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I wasn’t aware. The third is the emotional outburst. Well, I would do it if you guys would empower me and stop putting so much stress on me. I got to go. Get off my back, bro. So, what you do with that guy is you say, hey, you know what, you’re promoted to customer status. You know, it’s like where you can shop here anytime you want, but you’re gone. You’re gone, so fire. You gotta do it. So, you’ve gotta make sure that people ask him, do you know what to do? And if you do know what to do, are you choosing to do it? That’s good stuff. Step two. Document all human issues and system issues. Immediately. So, whenever you have a human issue, like if the, today we were on the Thrive set and we had an issue with a camera, we immediately document there’s a camera issue. You want to write it down because that’s a system issue. It didn’t matter how good you are, how good I am, how good somebody else is, and in my case how bad I am, but how good you are, if the camera doesn’t work, you can’t do your job. Now if there’s a human problem, like a human who showed up late, which we didn’t have anybody today that showed up late, but if we did, we’d have to document that immediately. And why do you want to document it because once you document it you you put it somewhere where you act on it’s actionable so if you have somebody who does a bad job you write them up immediately you take out your write-out sheet and we have downloadable write-up sheets drivers we have templates downloadable write-up sheets you can use to write up your people you write them up immediately you pull the person aside and you say hey you chose not to do your job today here’s what’s going on if there’s an equipment failure you immediately write it up write it up get it done get it fixed you have to do it immediately. Don’t do it later when you’re at home. Think of doing it immediately. So important. So important. Okay, step three. Improve systems and hold people accountable. Holding people accountable just means that you’re saying, I’m going to count what you do. I’m going to account for what you do. I’m saying, you said you were going to do this, and I’m going to hold you accountable. Integrity is an indivisible, the word integer is an indivisible number, okay? So integrity means that you’re indivisible. You do what you say you’re going to do. If somebody does what they say they’re going to do, they should have no problem with this system. Recently, true story, this just happened Friday. There is a business in town that has hired me to help them and they are struggling. And so I set up a call recording system. And why did I do that? So that you can measure and refine. Yes. And why did the person whose calls I was recording not want me to record their calls. In your mind? They were probably scared they were going to get messed up or criticized or something like that when you were going over them. This just in, they weren’t actually making the calls. Oh, that’s even worse. So what we did is we went ahead and installed the call recording system and I’d said, I was awesome on Friday, I said, hey, I just want to verify real quick. We’ve been recording your calls this week. And she’s like, and I have looked into the research and it’s still too early to tell all the numbers. I can see now how many calls we’re making a day and I can see what you’re saying on the calls. I can hear the calls and I just want to make sure you’re aware of that moving forward. Right away, where did you start? That’s a violation of my rights. We did tell the person. It’s in the handbook that says all calls are being recorded for quality control and they initialed that they read it. It even says on the phone if you call, you’re the caller, it says inbound. This call is being recorded for quality control. But this person was just so absent-minded. Now what starts to happen? They don’t want accountability. And let me tell you something, they’ll probably get fired next week because they’re choosing not to do their job and the call numbers were so pathetic. They’re supposed to make 100 outbound calls a day and they made like four. They knew what to do, chose not to do it. Hopefully they can improve and stay, but if not, we’re moving on. That’s got to happen, right? Boom. All right. On to step four. Fire people and systems that are consistently not performing up with the standards that your ideal and likely customers will demand. Your customers are the people who pay you. I’m going to put the Sam Walton quote on the screen, but the customer is the boss. The customer can fire everybody from the CEO on down. The customer is the boss. So if the camera that you bought isn’t delivering the way that you need it to deliver in order to have your customers wowed, get rid of it. You just fire the piece of equipment. You get rid of the equipment. You find something new. If you’re a home builder and the countertops you’re using are not high quality, they’re not working out well, people are complaining, without any emotion, you just switch, you stop using that kind of material. Here’s the problem. People get so much emotion, emotion, it’s the E in front of the motion. People get emotion, it stands in the way of the motion, and they won’t fire people who don’t perform because they’re like well, that’s my brother That’s my cousin. That’s my I’m just being real. I have had to fire numerous Family members and I always try to do it a nice way But I don’t care if you’re gonna come work with me because you feel like we’ve had some success and you want to come join The team I am NOT going to lose customers as a result of you choosing not to do your job So I will look at it pragmatically is the system not working is the person not working and if the system or the person is not working I take a time out and go did the system not know to work Maybe the computer is a great computer, but you didn’t program it properly Maybe the person is a great person, but you didn’t teach them properly But if they know and they’re choosing not to do it you got to fire them move on excellent stuff is so good today Step five don’t let human weeds grow in your garden superstars hate working with idiots. Okay, you work in the office and you’ve probably seen some nice people, some probably not so nice people that we’ve had to move on from, but recently you have a young man in the office and I won’t mention his name because he’s a good guy. He’s a good guy. He’s a good guy. I wouldn’t mention his name except his name is Rich. And Rich has absolutely been changing in a really positive way. Have you noticed this? Yes. And Rich, he’s just, he’s really exploding with an eagerness and an alacrity and an enthusiasm to, alacrity by the way means it’s an eagerness to learn. So he like wants to learn. You can tell he wants to learn. And why? Because he’s inspired by who? His boss, the people who are in charge. He loves Marshall. So Marshall’s one of our guys. He loves Marshall. He’s starting to learn. He’s like, man, Marshall does these things. I want to get the same result Marshall has. I should learn these things so because Marshall’s not a weed right if it was a garden scenario If he was if he was a weed it would be spreading Yeah, you got to look at is anybody in your company is like a cancerous viral growth Good or bad bad, so if they’re good, and let’s just say they’re a good person Like a virus they’re gonna spread their goodness if they’re a bad person, like a virus, they’re going to spread their badness. But nothing happens in a vacuum. You either are a viral cause for good or a viral cause for bad. And somebody here needs to hear this, but you’re going to have to move on if people can’t deliver. Listen, if the product doesn’t work, if you bought a TV and it didn’t work today, you know what you’d do? You’d return it and you’d say, I want another TV because it doesn’t work. Somebody else watching right now is saying, I would never return a TV. If it didn’t work, I’d keep it forever because I’m loyal to the brand.” Stop being that. Stop doing that. But most of us, if a hammer didn’t work, you bought a hammer, it doesn’t work, it breaks right away, you’d return it. But for some reason with people, we’re like, oh, I can’t do that. It’s so mean. Go back to the earlier rule. Ask the person, do they know what to do? If they know what to do, then did you choose to do it? If they didn’t, if they chose not to do it, write them up a few times and whack them. Awesome. Okay, we’ve got an idea here, right person, wrong seat. I’m going to read through that real quick and get your thoughts on it. In this case, right person, wrong seat. In this case, you have the right person, i.e. one who shares your core values, but he or she is truly not operating in his or her unique ability. This person has been promoted to a seat that is too big, has outgrown a seat that is too small or has been put in a position that does not utilize his or her unique ability. So generally, this person is where he or she is because he or she has been around a long time, you like him or her, and he or she is a great addition to the team until now. Okay, and I’ll pick on you as an example. This is a good one. You have done very, very well since joining our team. So you’re now given more tasks. So this is kind of fun for thrivers. This is one of your first times on camera. So you’re like the learning stuff, though. I mean, you’re learning. And nothing could be more uncomfortable than, one, learning on camera. Two, having your boss guy talk about you learning on camera. But the thing is, I mean, being real, though, right? And so you have been promoted because of you’ve done well with what you’ve been given. You have given little things. You did great on those little things. You do bigger things, bigger things. You’re giving more things. Pretty soon, you’ve been so fruitful with what you had, we decided to multiply your territory and to give you a bigger role. So now you’re in a role where you’re a musician, right? What all do you play? I used to play the drums and trumpet, now mainly guitar. And you can sing well too, right? I don’t know if I would say well, but I do like to sing. You can find harmony. So I’m saying, but you are a musician, you’re a performer, you know what that’s like, so learning this skill isn’t going to be impossible, it’s just going to be a thing where it’s a trial and error you learn. But if we put an introvert, a complete absolute introvert who is just as good as you were at the job you did, because you’ve done search engine work, you’ve done sales calls, you’ve been in meetings, you’ve been, I mean you’ve done a lot of great things. Weddings. Yeah, you’ve done everything. Because you’ve done that, if we now said, okay great, you’ve been promoted to being on camera, but you’re an introvert, that would not be good for your career. For you, because you’re a little bit of an extrovert, it’s no problem. But what I’m saying is, some people right now, you’re watching this and you’re like, my brother’s been with my company for 10 years, we started it together, and now as the company’s grown, now he’s in a position of leadership, but he’s an introvert. He’s unable to communicate verbally. Some of you are watching this right now and your sister is in charge of accounting, and that lady can’t find her purse and hasn’t entered anything into her check register in a decade, but you have her in accounting because she’s your sister. That has to stop. It happens so often. It seems like every small business, somebody’s been doing that. I mean, just this week I got on the phone with a guy who, the business, he’s in charge because his father passed away, and he’s just terrible. He’s not good at leadership, knows nothing about the business, doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he’s in charge. And that’s the guy, a good guy, but he’s just not qualified. So he’s now facing bankruptcy going Maybe I have to shut the company down because he just think about all the employees who work for him They’re gonna lose their jobs because he’s the great guy on the wrong seat wrong seat now if you understand this you understand this You’ll understand if you understand this principle you understand that it applies to you as well. So for me I was building drive 15 I realized I’m the founder of this thing I did this because I’ve been very successful as a business owner, but I needed to bring in a CEO with the big guns. I needed to bring in a kind of guy who has built major, major corporations, a guy who’s built big things. He’s built a bank, a guy who’s built an optometry center, a guy who’s a champion thoroughbred horse racing guy, a horse breeder, a guy who’s built medical companies, a guy who is named Dr. Zellner, and I’m going to ask him to be the CEO of the company, because right now the company needs that, and it needs somebody on the operational side, COO, to do what I do, which is focus on a bunch of very linear workflow details. So I needed to understand I was the right guy, wrong seat, so I had to move myself. And you know when you move yourself, what happens? Your ego gets in the way. So, as an ego thing, you start to say, I don’t want to move because I started it, or I was the founder, or I was here first, or I’m, but you got to look at this and ask yourself, are you the right person but on the wrong seat? Because once you get in that right seat, baby, once I hopped in that COO, I’m going, yes, I’m here. Now we’re driving. Yeah, I mean, I love COO. I love dealing with daily details. I can’t stand dealing with big visionary stuff. I hate that stuff. All right. Okay, on to step six. Don’t feel bad that you won’t let kids pee in your pool. Okay, here’s the deal. I have kids. I have five kids. My son’s having a big birthday party today, and when the kids come over, they’re going to have a good time. If there’s a kid just taking a whiz in the pool, you’ve got to go, hey, kid, quit whizzing in the pool, because we’re all going to be in the pool with you. You know what I’m saying? You’ve got to stop whizzing in the pool. And the kid might go, I didn’t know I couldn’t whiz in the pool and then he whizzes in the pool Again, it’s gross. Yeah, right. Yeah, so you got to say stop whizzing in the pool. Well, why are we letting people pee in? Our office contamination. Why are letting people poop on our own campground a little bit of American history for you. Do you know one of the number one causes of? death for the initial American Revolutionary when we decided to fight against Britain we decided to declare our independence. Do you know what the number one killers of our men was? Tell me. Dysentery. We were pooping literally in our own camp and being poisoned by our own human fecal matter. True story. So George Washington discovered this is not good. So he actually, there was a defector who was a red coat, he was a member of the British army, he was actually homosexual and he was known for being very clean. And the guy had defected from the army and George Washington hired the guy to come and teach the American men how to be clean and it literally almost stopped the amount of dysentery entirely. But this guy was super clean, super detailed, super stylish, super organized and the British that time, you know, if you were homosexual they wouldn’t let you be in the army. So they’re like, get out of here. So he left, defected, and he helped us. Wow. So I’m just telling you, that’s something that you don’t want to contaminate your own campground. You don’t want to poop where you’re camping. You want to make sure that if anybody works in your office and they are negative, get them out of there. Big. Don’t let them poop in your office. No. No pooping in public. Let’s keep that in the back of your mind. That’s a life rule. Yeah. Okay, step seven. Never stop recruiting or upgrading your team or you will eventually be screwed and left high and dry. We do group interviews every week. We’ve done group interviews every week for like 15 years. I’ve been self-employed now for 20 years, okay? And I’ve done group interviews for 15 of those years. The first five years were the dark period. That was because I was stupid. I was from age 15 to 20. Dumb. Now I do an interview every single week. I never will stop marketing and spending money on hiring people. I’ll never stop I mean I the new people are the lifeblood of your business So every single week even if we’re not hiring I do interviews and you know what if I find somebody like you who’s actually Better this is what happened. We brought you in for an interview We were in the group interview how many people were in that interview only to that day So we have an interview and we have very specific training on how to do this, but we had the interview We said oh great. We’d like to see you. We love your resume. We’d like to set up a time to see you. And I think we did it like Tuesday, maybe Tuesday at six. So Tuesday at six, you came in. There’s probably eight candidates who said they were going to come in, two of which showed up on time. And we didn’t need, we didn’t have a need, quote unquote. We didn’t have an empty seat on the bus. But we interviewed you and Marshall said, man, this guy’s awesome. So then I looked around the team and I was like, who is pooping on our campground? And I found a guy who was, and I had the conversation, moved him out, moved you in. Boom, that’s how you do it. Yeah, there we are. All right, so those are your seven steps to recruiting stars. This is how it works. Now real quick, if you have people working for you right now this is homework for you. I want everyone to do this. These are some actionable items, very big. Go ahead and type it in your notes or write it on a sheet of paper. Who are your A players? The top 10%. Write them down. Who gets to work early? Who stays late? Who always gets their job done? Who are the A players? Top 10%. Who are now the middle? Who are the middle 70%? These people, they show up on time barely. They leave on maybe a little bit early, but right on time. And they just barely get their job done. They never really over deliver, but that’s the middle 70% of your team maybe the middle 80% okay and by the way the system is from Jack Welch it’s called differentiation differentiation we’ll put the definition on the screen Jack Welch differentiation who are your middle 80% the people who get the job done they don’t really over deliver they’re not overachievers they’re not in your top 10% okay and then who are your C players who are the people who are the terrorists, the idiots, the morons, the jerks, who are these people? Write their names down and find a way to fire those that you cannot inspire. And find a way to reward your 10%. Look at your sheet of paper right now. Look at it. Your bottom 10%. Find a way to… If you cannot inspire them, find a way to fire them. Get them out of there. Find someone else. Your top 10%. Find a way to reward them. If you don’t have any money, give them the preferred parking spot. If you don’t have any preferred parking spots, give them some money. If you don’t have any money or a parking spot, give them an ice cream cone. If you can’t give them an ice cream cone, take out their picture, take their picture, put it on the wall, and celebrate them on the wall of awesome. If you can’t do that, write a handwritten note and say, I appreciate you. If you can’t do that, what the freak’s going on? You’re an excuse maker, slap yourself with a fish. There you go. Boom. Boom. Okay, we’re going to bring you phase 10 of Business Startup 101. Determine how to live your best life now. Let’s kick this one off with another notable quotable. I believe it’s true that the difference between great people and everyone else is that great people create their lives actively while everyone else is created by their lives passively waiting to see where life takes them next. Michael Gerber. Michael Gerber, sensational author. I’m telling you, his stuff, the E-Myth book series, it’s something everyone needs to buy. We talk about those great people, great people, the people we look up to and say, wow, this person is huge, this person is great, this person is exceptional, this lady, man, this lady is awesome, this woman, unbelievable, I wish I could be like her. They have boundaries and expectations. So today, I’m with you recording these training videos because I have set in my life a boundary that says I will be here to record on set dates and times and nothing will interfere with that. I do not turn my cell phone on. I do not take calls. I do not take emails. I do not respond to voicemails, texts, calls because I’m focused with you. There is a lot of people who say to me all the time, I get it every day, who say, you don’t even respond to your calls at all. I can’t reach you on Saturday mornings. I can’t reach you Friday nights. I can’t ever reach you on… Because I’m doing something that I have committed to. So many people say, since you have all these kids now, I never see you out. You never go out anywhere. You never… Right, because I’m with my kids, or I’m with my wife, or I’m recording. You have to begin to set those expectations for your life. The business is your vehicle to get where you want to go. So I need every single person right now, write it down, do it. The five F’s, the tornado of success, the five F’s. F5. F5 is by the way is the most tremendously intense tornado out there, the F5, highest category. Super scary, super scary, super scary, super scary. So one, faith. What are your faith goals? Write them down. Your faith goals. Okay, what are they? And then write when are you going to do it? I mean, I have faith goals, well when am I going to achieve those goals? What part of the day? Specifically, put it on your calendar. Faith, family, family. When am I going to spend time with family? When? Put it in the calendar. When? What time? Finances. What are my financial goals? How much am I going to save? Am I going to save seven bucks a day and put it in an account and do it every year and be a retired millionaire? Or am I going to just buy random crap that I find at the convenience store? Faith, family, finances. Fitness. When am I working out? When am I not working out? What am I doing? What are my fitness goals? What is my fitness commitment? Fitness, right? And then friendships. Who am I going to stay in touch with? Who am I not? What are my boundaries? When am I going to hang out with the guys or the ladies? What am I not? When am I going out for ladies night? When am I going out for dudes night? Am I in a bowling league? Am I not? Write down your goals. You have to define the life you want, otherwise by default it will suck like a Hoover vacuum. Those are big. That’s something I’ve been really working on personally a lot is following up on those KPIs every day and making sure that I’m It’s got a phone isn’t it kind of fun when you do like two days in a row Yeah, or three days and you start to see patterns. Yeah, because because what you do consistently becomes a habit and your habit becomes Your reputation and your reputation dictates your compensation boom. I’m gonna go ahead and just kind of just make sure we Nice little boom there. Okay. Okay. Let’s go through these steps step one Step one, define your ideal monthly schedule. We just talked about it, define it. Go ahead and get a calendar out right now and define it. Put on the calendar the things that must happen. Do it! Do it, listen, listen. I hate traveling. So I don’t put that on my schedule, but a friend of mine loves traveling, loves it. He loves going to new cities. Very successful guy. You know what he does? He has it on his calendar for a certain Friday every month that he literally has to leave and go to a fun city he’s never been to. Every month. That’s pretty cool. At the end of 52, at the end of 12 months, he’s like, man, I’ve been to 12 different cities. I’ve been to Denver, I’ve been to New York, I’ve been to San Diego. That’s pretty cool. And he takes time out of his schedule and he sets aside the finances to do it. And he says no to a lot of things. He doesn’t have cable TV. He makes about $60,000 a year. But he blocked out things. He has a car that’s paid for. He’s living below his means in that area. But he knows he likes to travel, so he blocks out time and he does it. Makes it happen, huh? Boom! All right, on to step two. Define your ideal weekly schedule. Yeah, and again, we’re dialing it down a little more. You have to know weekly what you want to get done. You have to have a calendar for your life. So I have in my calendar, I’ll take my wife on a date during certain days, you know, I have Friday nights, take her on a date, you know, Saturdays spend time with the kids, we do certain activities, Sunday it’s family time. We have times blocked out from four to six, you know, right from four to eight on Sundays That’s our family time. So we do that now my dad’s right now in the hospital struggling with a lot of things This is 24th day in a row in the hospital But we still go to family day at the hospital now we go to the hospital because it’s in our schedule We say no to other things. We don’t watch certain shows. We say no to things now Family Day takes a backseat to the Patriots when the Patriots happen, football season, go Tom Brady. Because we’ve put a system in place where we’ve agreed on these are values, things we are excited about, and frankly we watch the Patriots no matter where Family Day is. So if we’re having Family Day, we’re watching the Patriots. These are things that we have committed to. You think it’s kind of ridiculous and stupid, but very few of us are being diligent about scheduling the weekly lifestyle we want. We have these big goals, but we’re not breaking it into the weekly calendar. All right, well let’s drill down a little bit more with step three. Define your ideal daily schedule. Now daily’s a little crazy because now you’re going, oh no, I mean now that I actually have to do it. Because a lot of us are like, well I’ll start next week, you know, next week I’ll start it. I’m talking about today. Like this is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it, or is this is the day that the Lord has made and I’ll just sort of drift around and be pissed. I mean, I don’t know. You have to, you have to make a ideal day schedule. What time will you wake up? When will you work out? When will you eat? What will you eat? Where will you go? Who will you talk to? The five F’s, the tornado of awesome faith, family, finance, fitness, friendships, schedule it. What doesn’t get scheduled doesn’t happen. What you measure you, what treasure, what you measure, you treasure boom, bada bing, bada boom, boom, bang, boom, loving the rhymes, bang. Okay, now step four, last one. Begin turning your ideal schedule into reality by saying no to the wrong things and yes to the right things as you can afford it. Okay, the more money you have that allows you to say no to more things. So you’re buying, when you have money, it’s a unit of time. Think about this, if you bought a car, how much did it cost? Well, it’s $10,000. No, how many hours did it take you? I bought it for a thousand hours. How many weeks? 25 weeks. Yeah, you just spent 25 weeks of your life to buy the car. Think about next time you buy a purchase, next time you buy something, think about how many minutes it took you to buy it. Oh, wow. All of a sudden, you don’t want to buy it. Yeah. Sandwich is $7. I don’t know if I want to buy. I mean, that’s an hour, right? I mean, next time you go buy a watch, next time you buy a car, how many hours? You’re going to go buy a luxury car, okay, could you buy a luxury car for $80,000? How many minutes of your life did you give up for that? If you’re on your deathbed, would you want those minutes back or would you want that car? That is powerful. No one thinks that way. That is powerful. Money is a unit of time. So what you have to do is the more money you make, you have to start saying no to things. So we had a guy last week who didn’t turn in his pay sheet, okay? He says, could you come back up to the office to pay me? And some of you might say you’re a horrible person, but I’m just giving you examples. You can judge me, you can write hateful comments, it’s fine. But I’ve already talked to the guy numerous times about it, and I said, no, why? I’m with my wife. Being real, I mean, who do I care about more, my wife or him? Oh, that’s a mean choice. Well, you know what, you have to decide. So the other day I’m getting text messages, like just boom, boom, I turn my phone off. Why? I’m at the hospital, it’s Sunday, I’m visiting my dad. So I’m at the hospital with my dad from 4 p.m. To 8 p.m. Intensive care or whatever and I’m turn my phone off Somebody calls me and says dude. I’ve been trying to call you all day like furious with me like Well on Sunday stay with my dad at the hospital and I can’t get those minutes back and he has very few minutes left So I don’t care so you’ve got to understand that you’ve got to start to set these boundaries now and design the life you want because nobody is going to Ordain your own destiny like you you have to ordain your own destiny. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. You have to decide what you want to do. Design the life you want or live the life the world gives you. Uh-oh. Design the life you want or live the life the world gets you. That right there, my friends, is a knowledge bomb and air horn combo. So you go… Is that a first? I’ve never done it that way before. Whoa. Yeah, so I’m just saying. I mean, I could have hit the beer bong polka, but it didn’t have kind of the proflendity that I thought it needed. So back to you. Can’t think of a better way to end it. I’m just saying. I mean, I could have hit the beer bong polka, but it didn’t have kind of the proflendity that I thought it needed, so back to you. Can’t think of a better way to end it powerful right there. That was good stuff, Clay. Those are your four steps right there. Hey, listen, Thrivers, if you want to change your life, maybe you don’t. Maybe you just like to watch these videos and you’re like, I just love knowledge and it’s just fun and I’m just thinking about going back and getting my master’s and my PhD and probably get both of them together because it’s just expensive, you know. But if you actually want to change your life, you got two things you need to do. One, take action. Commit to actually taking action. Whatever you learned today, do it, schedule it. Remember, vision without execution is hallucination, to quote my main man Thomas Edison. So you gotta take action. Vision without execution is hallucination, to quote the main man Thomas Edison, who invented the modern light bulb, the modern video camera video. He invented recorded audio. The same guy invented all that. Vision without execution is hallucination. So step one, commit to action. Step number two is schedule a specific time. Time? So you wanna write a book, when are you gonna do it? You wanna start a business, when are you gonna do it? You wanna get married, when are you gonna do it? You wanna take your wife on a date, when are you gonna do it? You want to chase your wife around and wrestle her, when are you gonna do it? That’s how you have five kids. Schedule it. I leave it there. All right, JT, so hypothetically, in your mind, what is the purpose of having a business? To get you to your goals. So it’s a vehicle to get you to your destination. And would you need profits to get there? I mean, when you have a business that’s successful, in your expert opinion, would you need profits to get you to your goals? Yeah, because if you have a $15 million business, but you have $15 million in expenses, it’s kind of pointless. Holy crap. All right. So the question I would have here for you, if you could take like 10 minutes or less and see if you could save 3000 bucks a year by reducing your credit card fees, would you do it? Yes, absolutely. Holy crap. Why would somebody out there who’s listening right now who has the same mind, why would they not go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card, thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card to schedule a ten minute consultation to see if they can reduce their credit card fees by at least three thousand bucks a year? Why would they not do it? Yeah, why would they not do it? Maybe because they didn’t understand how you said the website. This tree is a symbol of the spirit of the Griswold family Christmas. That’s clear. That can be true. So I encourage everybody to check out Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card What would be another reason why someone would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they could save $3,000 or more on credit card fees? Maybe they think it is a waste of time and that it won’t. It’s not possible. There’s somebody out there. That’s making more than $3,000 every 10 minutes And they’re like nah, that’s not worth my time Probably some someone out there, okay, I would think that well I’ll just tell you folks if you’re out there today, and you’re making less than $3,000 per 10 minutes I would highly recommend that you go to thrive timeshare.com forward slash credit dash hard. It because you can compare rates, you can save money, and you know the big goal in my opinion of building a business is to create time freedom and financial freedom. And in order to do that you have to maximize your profits. Holy crap! Now one way to maximize your profits is to increase your revenue. Another way to do it is to decrease your expenses. It’s a profit deal. It takes the pressure off. JT, is there any other reason why somebody would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they could save a total of $3,000 a year on average? I am at a loss and I cannot think of any other. Shampoo is better. I go on first and clean the hair. Conditioner is better. I leave the hair silky and smooth. Oh, really fool, really. Stop looking at me, swan. Well, let me tell you a good story here real quick. I actually years ago compared rates with this company here called IPS. It’s Integrated Payment Services and I scheduled a consultation. I don’t know that I was skeptical. I just thought whatever I’ll take 10 minutes. I’ll compare rates. I can’t tell. You can tell me I’m a doctor. No I mean I’m just not sure. Why can’t you take a guess? Well not for another two hours. You can’t take a guess for another two hours? And in my case, in my particular case, I save over $20,000 a year. Holy crap! Wow. Which is like groceries when my wife goes to the organic stores. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great. Okay. Oh God. Everything okay, ma’am? It’s just that you’ve only scanned a few items and it’s already $60. I’m so scared. Okay, I’m a trained professional, ma’am. I’ve scanned a lot of groceries. I need you to stay with me. It’s just that my in-laws are in town and they want a charcuterie board. This isn’t going to be easy, so I need you to be brave, all right? What’s your name? Patricia. Patricia, all right. I need you to take a deep breath. We’re about to do the cheese. You know, that’s the difference between eating organic and not organic. So because my wife eats organic, I had to take the 10 minutes needed to compare rates to save the $20,000 a year on credit card fees just for one of my companies. One question, what’s the brand name of the clock? The brand name of the clock, Rod, do we have it? The brand name of the clock, it’s an elegant, from Ridgeway, it’s from Ridgeway. Let’s buy the clock and sell the fireplace. I encourage everybody out there, go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. You schedule a free consultation, request information, a member of our team will call you, they’ll schedule a free consultation. It should take you 10 minutes or less, and they’re going to compare rates and see if they can’t save you more than $3,000 a year off of your credit card processing. You were hoping what? I wouldn’t owe you money at the end of the day. No, you don’t owe us money. Because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the goal of the business is to create time, freedom and financial freedom. In order to do that, you need to create additional profits. The number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. We are Jared and Jennifer Johnson. We own Platinum Pest and Lawn and are located in Owasso, Oklahoma. And we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah. So what we want to do is we want to share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now. Okay. I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, 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 listing and ranking there with Google. And also, we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, asking our customers for reviews, and now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pescemon 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, more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. It’s incredible, but the reason why we have that success is by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews. That way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists. Everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast like Jared had mentioned that has really really contributed to our success but that like 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 with our business. And we were in a rut. And we didn’t know. The last three years, our customer base had pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah. And so we didn’t we didn’t really know where to go what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in. But Thrive helped us with that, you know, that they implemented those systems that 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 the use of services, you’re choosing to use a proven 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 Lee Crockwell, 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, and they run 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So in the weekly he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks he’s doing reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires helping them grow their companies. I’ve seen guys from start-ups go from start-up to being multi-millionaires teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So amazing guy. Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. And that’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. Coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time the coaches actually helping you get to the best you and plays that amazing business coach through course of that we became friends uh… miles really most impressive thing is when i was shadowing him one time on the way into a business deal listen to i what i got a shadow listen to it when walked out by me that he can 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, he doesn’t, his highest desire was to do what’s right and anyways just an amazing man. So anyways impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate any time I’ve got nervous or worried about how to run the company or you know navigating competition and an economy that’s like I remember we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to 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 Canine. 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. So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team. And by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past, and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts, and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now, instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. The Thrivetime Show, two-day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13-point business system 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 cap? 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 going to be the best business workshop ever. We wouldn’t give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. If we go back eight years ago, think about the number of clients you had back then versus the number of clients you have now. As a percentage, what has been the growth over the past eight years, do you think? We’ve got to inspire somebody out there who just doesn’t have the time to listen to our call. Well, okay, so Clay, it’s like I would go up and down from about $10,000 a month up to about $40,000, but it’s up and down roller coaster. And so now we’ve got it to where we’re in excess of 100 clients. That’s awesome. And so I would have anywhere from 5 clients to 20 clients on my own with networking, but I had no control over it. I didn’t. Without the systems, you’re going to be victimized by your own business. For somebody out there who struggles with math, if you would say that your average number of clients was 30 and you go to 100, as a percentage what is that? I have doubled every year since working with you. So I’ve doubled in clients, I’ve doubled in revenue every year. That’s 100% growth every year I’ve worked with you. So we’ve been good friends 7, 8 years and I’ve got doubled five times. Which is just incredible. I mean the first time you do it, that’s one thing, but when you do it repeatedly, I mean that’s unbelievable. We’re working our blessed assurance off this year to double. We’re planning on doubling again. We’re incorporating some new things in there to really help us do it, but we are going to double again this year. I started coaching, but it would go up and down, Clay. That’s when I came to you, as I was going up and down, and I wanted to go up and up instead of up and down. And so that’s when it needed a system. So creating a system is you have nailed down specific steps that you’re going to take, no matter how you feel, no matter the results. You lean into them and you do them regardless of what’s happening. You lean into them and it will give you X number of leads, you follow up with those leads, it turns into sales. Well, I tell you, if you don’t have a script and you don’t have a system, then every day is a whole new creation. You’re creating a lot of energy just to figure out what are you going to do. And the best executives, Peter Drucker is a father of modern management, he said, the most effective executives make one decision a year. What you do is you make a decision, what is your system, and then you work like the Dickens to make sure you follow that system. That’s really what it’s all about. With a script here, we have a brand new gal that just came in working for us. She nailed down the script, and she’s been nailing down appointments. Usually we try to get one appointment for every hundred calls. We make two to three hundred calls a day per rep. Right. And she’s been nailing down five and eight appointments a day. Somebody out there’s having a hard time. On that script. So she’s making how many calls a day? She’s making between two and three hundred calls a day. And our relationship is weird in that we do, if someone were to buy an Apple computer today, and or let’s say about a personal computer, a PC, the computer is made by, let’s say, Dell. But then the software in the computer would be Microsoft, let’s say, or Adobe or whatever that is. So I basically make the systems and you’re like the computer and I’m like the software. It’s kind of how I would describe our relationship. Tim, I want to ask you this. You and I reconnected, I think it was in the year 2000 and, what was it, maybe 2010? Is that right? 2011 maybe? Or maybe further down the road, maybe 2013? 2012. Okay, so 2012, and at that time I was five years removed from the DJ business. And you were how many years removed from tax and accounting software? It was about 10, 11 years. We met, how did we meet? What was the first interaction or some interaction where you and I first connected? I just remember that somehow you and I went to Hideaway Pizza. But you remember when we first reconnected? Yeah, well we had that speaking thing. Oh there it was! Victory Christian Center. I was speaking there. My name is Robert Redman. I actually first met Clay almost three years ago to the day. I don’t know if he remembers it or not But I wasn’t working with him at the time I asked to see him and just ask him some questions to help, you know direct my life to get some mentorship But I’ve been working with clay for now just over a year The role I play here is a business coach business consultant. I work with different businesses businesses, implementing best practice processes and systems that I have learned here by working with Clay. The experience working here has, to put it real plainly, has been just life changing. I have not only learned new things and have gained new knowledge, but I have gained a whole new mindset that I believe wherever I end up will serve me well throughout the rest of my life. Since working with Clay, I have learned so much. I mean, I would like to say it was everything about business in terms of the different categories. I haven’t learned it all, but I’ve learned all about marketing. I’ve learned about advertising. I’ve learned about branding. I’ve learned how to create a sales process for organizations in any industry. I’ve learned how to sell. I’ve learned how to create repeatable systems and processes and hold people accountable. You know, how to hire people. It’s almost like every aspect of a business you can learn, I have learned a lot in those different categories. And then, again, the mindset that I’ve gained here has been huge. You know, working here, you can’t be a mediocre person. You are a call to a higher standard of excellence, and then as you’re called to that standard here, you begin to see those outcomes in every area of your life, that standard of excellence that you want to implement no matter what you’re involved in. I would like to describe the other people that work with Clay are people that are going somewhere with their life. Marshall in the group interview talks about how the best fits for this organization are the people that are goal-oriented. So they’re on their own trajectory and we’re on our own trajectory. And the best fits are those people where there introductory and The the best fits are those people where there can be a mutually beneficial relationship that as we pursue our goals And we help the business pursue those goals the business helps us pursue our goals as well And so I say people that are driven people that want to make something of their lives People that are goal-oriented. They’re focused, and they’re committed to overcoming any adversity that may come their way. Clay’s passion for helping business owners grow their businesses is, it’s unique in that, I don’t know if there’s anyone else that can be as passionate. You know, whenever a business starts working with Clay, it’s almost as like Clay is running that business in the sense that he has something at stake. You know, he’s just serving them. They’re one of his clients, but it’s as if he is actively involved in the business. Whenever they have a win, he’s posting it all over his social media. He’s shouting it across the room here at Thrive. You know, he’s sending people encouraging messages. He can kind of be that life coach and business coach in terms of being that motivator and that champion for people’s businesses. It’s again unique because there’s no one else I’ve seen get so excited about and passionate about other people’s businesses. The kind of people that wouldn’t like working with Clay are people that are satisfied with mediocrity, people that want to get through life by just doing enough, by just getting by, people who are not looking to develop themselves, people who are not coachable, people who think that they know it all and they’re unwilling to change. I would say those are the type of people, in short, anyone that’s content with mediocrity would not like working with Clay. So if you’re meeting Clay for the first time, the advice I’d give you is definitely come ready to take tons of notes. Every time Clay speaks, he gives you a wealth of knowledge that you don’t want to miss. I remember the first time that I met Clay. I literally carried a notebook with me all around. I was looking at this notebook the other day, actually. I carried a notebook with me all around, and I just took tons of notes. I filled the entire notebook in about three or four months, just from being around Clay, following him, and learning from him. And then I would say, come coachable. Be open to learning something new. Be open to challenging yourself. Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.