Entrepreneur | Buying a New Startup With Terry Powell + Buy And Sell Agreements + Defining Accounting + Brainstorming

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 a father of five, that’s where I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now, three, two, one, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, and that’s what we’re about to do. Jerry Powell, how are you, my friend? Clay, great to be here. I’m doing great. Hey, today we are talking about hitting the ground running with your new franchise. So this is for all the people who’ve invested in a franchise business model or maybe somebody who’s on the verge of investing. You’re kind of going what happens once I’m actually starting? Day one sort of thing. And so there’s really four phases of business development for franchise owners, for franchisees. There’s really four phases there. And so we’re going to be discussing each one. And basically I’m going to start off with phase number one here. Phase number one, I kind of call this the baby phase, but basically this is the phase where somebody has just signed the contract and before they see their first customer. Talk to me about, I mean, if we can take me to that place, if you can kind of imagine, I just bought one and I just paid you, just bought the franchise, and I haven’t seen a customer yet. Walk me through what that phase is like, this baby phase? You have signed the license agreement so now it’s official and all the elements that come forward as a result of now becoming a franchisee under that license will become available to you. The beauty of it is that the franchise has it all structured so there’ll be a pre-launch phase in those cases where they’ll prepare you for the initial training and ongoing training to be able to open your franchise business. So right away they’re going to want to get some the details out of the way. Right now you’re just learning about the business, so it’s building on your education and awareness around how to apply the franchise model for your own benefit. Now, correct me if I’m wrong here, and I probably am, but on the franchise disclosure document, I can see a table of contents of my operations manual. So I can see the table of contents for my operations manual before I buy one. Yes. But I can’t actually see the operations manual until I buy one. Is that right? And the operations manual will be a piece of that ongoing rollout. But also, you’re going to see in that disclosure document the curriculum and the process of what your training is going to be, which is launch. So there’s a lot to know here. I could be learning new equipment. I could be learning my operations manual, learning I’m setting up a lot of systems. It’s kind of, I think I’ve heard it said, it’s getting ready to get ready? Or what exactly? I mean, is it kind of a… You want to avoid that phase. You want to avoid that phase. That usually happens when you get a little bit overwhelmed and you shut down a little bit temporarily and you spend too much time looking to totally grasp or understand everything before you actually start letting the business model benefit you. So you really need to take action here. You don’t get stuck. Do you find that a lot of franchise owners are a little bit scared right here where they go, uh-oh, I just bought something. Do you see that? Or I just invested in something. Do you see that? Well, right before that point we call that the sweaty palm syndrome. Okay. And that’s a checkpoint. We say, you know, we tell people don’t be alarmed by that. We’d be more concerned if you didn’t have it. And then once they’ve made the commitment and have been awarded the license, they shift over to how quickly and how, you know, how abundantly can I get the information that I feel that I need to get the business and get the results. I think we always have to keep it in mind. We always have to mention this, you have to keep it in mind. The franchisor is not really making any money until you are making money as a franchisee. Well, yeah, they’re recovering some of the investments they had to make to be able to bring you on and offer you a franchise. And now they’re going to be putting the most energy and effort at that launch phase is when the franchisor is putting the most energy and effort as are their team members with the least amount of royalty coming in because you haven’t even generated a dollar in royalty stream. How much contact should a new franchisee be having with the franchisor at this phase in their business development? How much contact should we be having? Franchisee really doesn’t need to be concerned about what that will be, how much it will be or what the steps are because everything is rolled out in a very strategic approach, paint by numbers, or think of it about building a skyscraper. You want your business to be a skyscraper, but the foundation has to be built first. A lot of times they’re going to want to jump to the second or third floor when the franchisor is going to keep you focused on the logical, sequential way to build on that. So if I’m a little bit overwhelmed, feel a little bit over my head, this is a little this is normal. That’s very normal. I just don’t want to get stuck getting ready to get ready. I want to keep on taking action. Yeah, just allow the system to recall the Nike principle. Just do it. Okay, so we’re moving on to phase number two. This is the toddler. Anybody who has kids or maybe you’ve ever been a kid, you know that toddlers, they have to kind of learn to walk. They’re just learning to walk. They tend to make a lot of mistakes, but they’re taking action. You don’t see a lot of kids getting dejected that they fall down often and then just quit trying. They just keep going here. And so this toddler mindset, in my mind, this is the phase that goes from the time where you’ve actually seen your first customer to really the point where you’re starting to successfully make it through your first year. So it’s kind of like, did somebody just walk in? Did we just have a customer? That kind of euphoria to the end of the first year. Can you walk me through some of the things that are going on from a mindset perspective during this first, from the first customer to the end of the first year? Well, there is a lot of things to learn and a lot of surprises along the way, but all of them are orchestrated and understandable from the franchisor perspective and from the education. But Toddler is a great way to describe it. And we talk a lot about franchising being so successful because they provide the guardrails. And if a toddler is just learning to walk in our home, we also put up guardrails. We block off the stairwell. We put cushions around the hearth on the fireplace because we know they’re going to stumble. They’re going to make some mistakes. All franchisees make mistakes. The good part is there’s no mistake you can make within the guardrails of that licensing system that will detract from your results. So the idea is be open to be making mistakes as part of your learning. And I will say this is a huge reason why I love the franchise model here for my own personal experience. I know I decided to buy radio ads back in the day with one of my first businesses and we sold wedding entertainment to brides and grooms. Well, almost all the purchases were driven by brides. I bought ads on a talk radio station that had almost an all-male audience and a lot of them and so the ads just kept running and running and running. It was like about 8,000 bucks a month. And I kept being like, when am I going to get a call? Well, because there wasn’t guardrails, I had got pretty intense about it. And there wasn’t any guardrails. Where I see a lot of times when people buy a franchise, there’s more guardrails in place where they say, here are a few marketing avenues that have been proven to work. Choose which one. We recommend this much, not that more than this much, not less than this much. And there is enough guardrails where you’re going to fall, but it’s not going to be like, you’re not going to break a leg usually. It’s not going to take away from the results that you can obtain. Now, what are some of the joys and the challenges that the franchisees experience at this point, in this toddler phase here? Well, in the first six months, we encourage new franchisees to spare us their brilliance. And the beauty of recruiting franchisees into a proven system is you want to have people that have had proven successes in their past careers. So they’re knowledgeable, intelligent, well-meaning individuals, so they have a lot of things they bring to the table. And most of them want to share that as their brilliance to improve on the franchise system before they actually apply it. There is a lot of that that takes place naturally for many achievers, but it’s something that can really get you off track. You really need to just settle in, apply the Nike principle, just do it, follow the system, and spare your brilliance of ideas, suggestions, modifications, and things until after the six months. Now there seems to be a lot of eagerness and optimism during this phase where there’s kind of a, not utopia, but there’s a belief that things could be great. We could build a big business. We could open up multiple locations. There seems to be a lot of that energy there. What are some of the big, big, big issues that you deal with, despite the optimism during this phase, that are pretty common? The most interesting thing and most common is that the franchisee, during this phase of determining to invest, puts together their idea of the best and worst case scenario. And then they come to a conclusion that they can deal with that transition phase during the first six months to a year. Okay. They also understand that there’s going to be additional investments and things that they’re going to continue to make while they’re building that business. But interestingly, right after their first month or so, they start questioning that and wondering why it’s not happening sooner. And they also get nervous about continuing to make the investments that it takes to get beyond that first six months. So they start to pull back. I’m going to give an example of what not to do here, because I’ve seen it happen first hand. I know of one particular situation where in the franchise agreement, the person who bought the franchise is required to spend a minimum amount of money each month on advertisement. And I think month one, they pulled their ads. They said, we’re not doing month two, we just can’t, we can’t do it. And they weren’t really honest with the franchisor and their financial situation in certain areas. So they pulled back ads. Well, then less people showed up. So then they pulled back staffing and then they had less than quality standards. And then it’s a bad cycle. So really this is when you probably need to be extremely, I mean, and all the entire time you’re in a franchise, you need to follow the systems, but specifically this is when you really need to implement with pig-headed discipline these systems, right? Absolutely. You need to stay true to the course of the plan from a standpoint of making the transition from investment and continuing to invest in order to get a higher return. So if you start to cut back or you start to change that, then don’t expect the same return in the same time frame. Now we’re going to move on to phase three. This is what I call the teenage phase. And this is sort of that phase where you’re kind of unruly. We think we know everything, but we know nothing. And I just did kind of an informal, unofficial survey, just kind of walking around Walmart. And I discovered that about 99% of the teenagers there were not happy with their parents. And I think on franchising, I see this a lot, where somebody’s been in business now. They finished year one, and now they’re going, you mentioned sparing us your brilliance in the first few months. Now we’re saying, I have made it through a year, I know everything, and I’m going to just start making crazy changes. I’m going to reinvent the whole wheel. Walk me through, in your mind, why you start to see franchisees get a little unruly sometimes after that first year and some of that teenage stuff going on. What do you typically see there? A lot of similarities to raising teenagers. When they start into that teenage age, they were very close to their parents, they were following a lot of guidance, and then all of a sudden, it’s like something happened, and they no longer really want to hear that advice, or they no longer want to have a parent involved or even recognize the fact that they have a parent. A little bit of that occurs in a franchise, but fortunately not up to 95%. Our experience is about 15 to 20-some percent of franchisees struggle with that teenager type of mindset. And I think that the second phase, we’re talking about the toddler, they’re optimistic, they’re kind of euphoric about, this could be great. And now they start to get a little cynical, like, I bet you the corporate office is making a ton of money. I think not everyone does that, but about 20 percent of people do. And I think it’s important that I can just share objectively haven’t spoke at franchise conferences it doesn’t matter what franchise you invest in there’s always going to be about 20% that feel that way. Absolutely. And I start to notice the mindset that could creep in of entitlement like that we’re owed success from the corporate office. Can you explain to me the danger of getting stuck in the entitlement mindset and maybe the mindset I want to have as I’m going through this teenage phase? Absolutely, and that’s a great way to put it, entitlement. And typically we find that that comes from those who have already started to modify or adjust the model and work outside the guardrails. They’ve gotten comfortable with 80 to 85 percent of the system pretty quickly, but there’s that 15 to 20 percent that’s outside their comfort level that they’re starting to avoid or rationalize that that’s not really important. And when that happens, and the results don’t come, then they get that entitlement. Well, I did everything you told me I was supposed to do. I followed it to a T, and the results aren’t here. This doesn’t work. I will give you one example. I know in the insurance business, whether you’re an independent agent for New York Life or Farmers or State Farm or whatever the brand you choose, there are systems. There’s call scripts. There’s ways to answer the phone, things you’re supposed to say, things you’re not supposed to say, ways you’re supposed to present. I notice a lot of people in the insurance industry specifically that will follow the prospecting process but not follow the conversion system. In their mind, they’re like, look, I have the uniform, look, I have the office, look, I have the posters, I have the sign, I have the auto wrap, I have the prospecting, I’m buying my leads. People aren’t buying. And so you see that 15% of the conversion not being implemented, it creates all the problems. Is it pretty widespread for people to not want to do the whole system? It’s fairly common. What really starts to happen in the conversion aspect is that every business has metrics. And the new franchisee starts to look at what’s not happening more than what’s happening. So they take their eye off the progress they’re making and look for perfection or what we call the, you know, the horizon of the perfect thing that needs to happen and they lose sight of the fact that those were already part of the metrics. Not every client is going to convert, not every customer that you reach from advertising is going to come in the door and those who come in the door, not everyone is going to purchase. They start making that mean that this isn’t working when in fact it was already part of the metrics of what you need to go through to get to the success. I want to share something. I’m certainly not a therapist, although I might need a therapist from time to time, but I want to share this. In any relationship there’s going to be a strain. I don’t care if you play for the best football coach in the NFL, if you have the best husband-wife relationship, you’re going to eventually disagree about something. In the world of franchising, it’s no different. You’re going to disagree and there’s a little bit of a strain there. But the thing is you have to have a commitment to seeing it through to get through this process. How important is it for the franchise owner, the new franchisee, to be committed and have a lot of faith in the brand they just bought during this phase? Well, it’s very important to have faith in what you’ve invested in or faith in anything you do. But the idea of it from a standpoint of what do you do from a standpoint of implementing and how do you follow through on that. You talk about a relationship. If every relationship had the structure of a franchise interdependent relationship, it wouldn’t have the struggle. So anytime you have an issue with a relationship and a franchise, you can take a break, go back and look at the license agreement and it thoroughly describes the relationship and what your role is as a franchisee and what our role is. So we can do a checkpoint. We can do a self-audit. We can look at that and say, okay, have I met my obligations as a franchisee and has the franchisor met theirs? And then have an open dialogue and discussion about that. Now, this final phase is the maturity phase. And this is one that I love to watch firsthand. Specifically, I spoke at a conference last year and I remember being on the tour bus where we were taking kind of a bus as a group from location one to two, kind of doing some excursions as a team, some team building exercises with all the franchisees. This is usually where you see the gray-haired guy who’s been in it for 20 years. He pulls aside the teenager franchise who’s complaining about systems and saying, hey, I remember when I started and I was going through this, and there’s kind of that mentorship that goes on. And in this franchise, it seems like the franchisees no longer fighting with the corporate office or rebelling. They’re actually trying to help. They might serve as an advisor or that kind of thing. Typically, why do franchisees and franchisees or start to feel more like family at this phase? Why does that happen in your mind? Well, you are actually part of the family. Everybody benefits from the franchise brand rising. We call it, you know, rising tide raises all ships. So when you work collaboratively and create those synergies, you’re going to create an environment for that brand that everybody’s going to benefit from, just like in a family situation. You know, the type you described, they become more mature. There’s a lot of good that comes from that. There’s also some dangers associated with franchisees when they get a little mature. We call that that it works so well they stop doing it. And that happens a lot. And then they start creating best practices that they wanna justify why they haven’t kept up with the right practices. And they start sharing those with other franchisees. So you just have to be careful that even a mature, seemingly successful franchisee is not giving you advice that’s outside the guardrails. Now, another thing about this phase that’s interesting is I’ve noticed a lot of franchises, franchisors, have decided that they’re going to create a forum for top performing franchisees to contribute. And it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the veteran ones. Example, I could have been doing it the wrong way for 25 years, or I could be doing it the right way for five years. But it seems like a lot of the top franchises will come up with a format for these top performing people to kind of serve as mentors and advisors. Can you walk me through some of the ways that some franchises have incorporated some successful people in that maturity phase of their business? Well, it works well in some cases and doesn’t work well in others. Sometimes by having your superstars being the model, those individuals are just coming into the system or at their three or five year, that seems that that’s so far away. Okay. It actually discourages franchisees from achieving their goals. So we have to manage that from a standpoint that we don’t put all the superstars up because like if you’re building a foundation in your business for that skyscraper and we’re highlighting the people in the penthouse. Yeah. And you don’t want to build the rest of the levels to get to the penthouse. You just want to get there. Yeah. And then you become discouraged. You say that guy or that lady is so phenomenal. They just got it. I’ll never be like that. So there’s a danger in that. Okay. So what we typically do is create a franchise type of advisory or even a council that will be a mix of franchisees that can be objective and can help all types of franchisees be able to understand where they are. From your perspective, how long should it be from the time I start as a new franchise owner to the time where I reach the maturity phase, you know, to reach that special time where I’m like the mature franchise owner who kind of has my, you know, feel settled? Well, that’ll vary by individual, but I prefer to coach clients to use that phases from a standpoint of how much of their income, lifestyle, wealth and equity they’ve achieved and are obtaining from the growth of that business. And to continue to go back to that, because that will be the motivator to continually get the best return. So it’s not necessarily how long have I been in the business, it’s how am I meeting on my objectives and my targets around income, lifestyle, wealth and equity, using that business as a vehicle to drive my lifestyle. And just to make sure that I don’t miss this or we don’t miss this concept. Maybe you’re watching this and you haven’t watched some of the other great content that Terry, you have up here. You talk a lot about income, lifestyle, wealth, and equity. And in my mind, you cannot reach the maturity phase until you’ve had success in all four. So let’s just take a moment to go through each one of those one by one. Let’s start with income. What does it mean to reach the maturity phase as it relates to income? Well, the good news is that’s the first phase. Okay. And it’s the easiest phase to achieve in a franchise. Income will start to generate fairly rapidly, and it will depend on the industry how quickly that will be. But it will require you to do investments before that comes in. So you start achieving income, and that income can grow and expand. As a byproduct of having income that exceeds your needs currently, you’ll look at your lifestyle and franchise owners will start to aspire to a higher lifestyle because their income, lifestyle, wealth and equity plan had visuals and pictures and descriptions about what that was going to look like when they reach this level. We’re going to have a cabin, you know, that we go to in the summertime or, you know, we’re going to have a motor home or we’re going to be achieving these kinds of lifestyle. We’re going to travel more. So lifestyle comes after income. Okay. There is a tendency sometimes for franchisees to put the lifestyle before the income. And they’ll have a few successes and they’ll go out and spend the lifestyle part before they have the consistency of the income. That’s kind of like I had a great year I’m gonna go buy a boat. Yes. Okay. Now the third area. It’s exactly that. Went out in their seventh month and bought a boat. Now the third area is this wealth. And I don’t think that people are familiar with the term wealth that you speak of. So go ahead and clarify what you mean by the maturity phase and as it relates to wealth. So you’re going to have the income and then you’re going to have the lifestyle. And there’s going to come a point where you have all the lifestyle and the income that you can possibly spend currently or utilize. So now you’re going to take the excess income that’s being driven by that business, the profit, and you’re going to start to diversify your wealth into other areas. So you’re going to have other investments. You’re going to have multiple investments. You’re going to have additional licenses that you’ll invest in or you’ll go and diversify into multiple brands or you’ll just invest in the stock market or you’ll invest in stocks and bonds or you’ll invest in real estate. So that’s the wealth building phase, that it uses the excess profitability from the business to reinvest some of that and to grow it and also diversified into other wealth-building strategies. What about equity? This final phase of maturity, this equity, what does it mean to achieve the maturity or the mature status as a business owner in terms of equity? Kind of think of it as if you have a real estate and it’s matured in its value from the point where you purchased it where your equity is higher. So you purchased it for $300, it’s now worth $600. In a business, you’re going to have that constantly building, where the value of that business, if you were to sell it, is much higher than when you invested in it. So you’re constantly building that, and you can cash in that equity by either selling it or you can pass it on as part of your estate. And I want to make sure that if you’re watching this, you’re getting this, because I did not understand it before having worked in the franchise business helping, I basically helped coach some franchisors who needed help with their call centers and operations. And so I kind of was as a vendor from the outside looking in, but because of the amount of regulation that exists within franchising, it’s more regulated than you said than stocks and bonds. And you were actually, you’re absolutely building an asset that you can sell. Absolutely. So you can grow your business to be very successful. And there is a market for people who are totally willing to, they’re actually very interested in wanting to buy your franchise. Absolutely. The bigger it gets, the more people that want to buy it. So that’s exciting. Yeah, it is. Terry, I appreciate you bringing some clarity, bringing some of that knowledge you just don’t get in college here. And you’ve been doing this for 30 years, and I appreciate you giving us sort of that fire hose of knowledge. So thank you so much, my friend. My pleasure. Appreciate it. Take care. Thrive15.com and Wes Carter are providing general legal information to provide thrivers like you with a basic framework of the terms, concepts, and scenarios found within the legal system of the United States. If you are a human who is watching this video, you should seek the legal advice of a local attorney before making a legal decision. If you are watching these videos from any country outside of the United States or from any planet outside of the planet Earth, you need to seek the wise legal counsel of a local attorney who better understands the legal complexities found within your country, planet, state, or city. For instance, in some states, including California, Florida, Nevada, Alaska, and Hawaii, a motorist can be cited for driving too slowly. Other states do not have this law, although Clay has actually been pulled over for driving too slow within the state of Oklahoma, which pretty much never happens. Wes Carter is a great American and a beautiful man, but the Y15.com and its partners are in no way legally liable for any fashion statements that he makes, verbally or just by omitting fashionable awesomeness simply by entering into a room. Wes Carter is not related in any shape or form to Clarence Carter, recording artist, John Carter, entrepreneur and artist, or Joe Carter, MLB baseball great. Wes Carter, how are you, my friend? I’m well, how are you? I’m doing great. I, uh, last night I slept, uh, for five hours, which pushed past about that four-hour realm I’m kind of, that four-hour, four hours I’m used to mm-hmm so I feel like I have that much more energy 20% more power I’m not gonna test it let’s just five hours yeah buddy way more than you need right beautiful beautiful and then also we’re joined here by our unofficial non-sponsor Perrier we’ve never called them we’ve never reached out to them to sponsor us but we believe that in the future if we put enough you know if we put enough period in each episode they’ll eventually sponsor us there could be legal issues with it. And that’s why we’re going to be talking today with the legal eagle, Mr. Wes Carter, about buy and sell agreements. And today, Wes, before we get down into the nitty-gritty here, I want to ask you the question. I think thrivers throughout the world, other countries, continents, cities, rural communities, they want to know, are you in any way, shape, or form legally related to Stacey Lee Carter, better known as Miss Kitty or The Cat, an American former professional wrestling, you know, she’s sort of a big deal, kind of a wrestling diva? No. Okay. And if he’s going to be that way, we just are going to move on. And so now we’re talking about buy and sell agreements, and I’m going to go ahead and define it for you. Okay. It says a buy and sell agreement is an approach used by sole proprietorships, partnerships, and closed corporations to divide the business share or interest of a proprietor, partner, or shareholder. The owner of the business interest being considered has to be disabled, deceased, retired, or expressed interest in selling. The buy and sell agreement requires that the business share is sold according to a predetermined formula to the company or remaining members of the business. Before the interest of a deceased partner can be sold to the company or remaining partners, the deceased estate must agree to sell. Wes, what does that mean in common sense? There’s a lot of big words there. Yeah, what does this mean? What is a buy and sell agreement? It’s pretty much like a prenup for a business. We’re going to distribute our assets. Now for a lot of Thrivers watching this, I’m sure as you’re starting a new company right now or maybe you have one, maybe you and a partner are cheating the system. You’re trying to screw the man, which would be me, and you said, we’re going to share an account. So the two of you have one account. You’re watching this video together. I know it can be awkward, but the thing is nobody starts a business I believe with the idea that they’re gonna have a failed partnership I mean, but yet you’re saying are you saying we should have one of these business pre-nups before we start you should absolutely It should be one of the first things you do really if you’re talking about like you mentioned Someone your partner dies your partner is disabled your partner has a personal bankruptcy, your partner gets divorced. Those are all things that will significantly affect the business. And you could end up in business with a bankruptcy trustee or an ex-wife if you’re not careful. Now, what is the most common misconception that people have about a buy and sell agreement? Probably the most common misconception, I would say, is that you don’t need one. We’ll figure it out. If you want to sell it, we’ll just agree later on. Or if we get to the point where we want to sell a business, nobody thinks about what if only one of us wants to sell it and the other one doesn’t. We’ll figure it out later. Well here’s the thing. I’m not talking about me necessarily. I might be. But I’m talking about a guy I know. A guy I know. That way I’m the only one who has some legal trouble. It’s a guy I know. It could be me. It could be a guy I know has partnered with a lot of different people and You know sometimes people they do weird stuff. They get divorced they get into Tax issues they they do Bad things people get sick people get hurt. I mean no one plans on it, but it happens right I mean, this is pretty common stuff here pretty common, okay? So I’m gonna ask you this this is kind of a story time with Wes Carter Wes Wes, go ahead and tell me a horrible story about what can happen if you’re a business and you say you’re a business owner and you and a partner own a business together and you don’t have a buy and sell agreement in place. I mean, what’s the worst thing that could happen? Give me kind of a story. What could happen? Probably the worst case scenario is your partner is involved in a bankruptcy and a divorce at the same time. Because then you have a bankruptcy trustee coming in to try to regulate the business’s assets to pay its creditors, pay your partner’s creditors. At the same time, you have a wife and a husband who are trying to split up their marital property, part of which is his interest in the business, deciding who gets the money, who gets to make management decisions. I mean, and you’re just sitting there trying to run your business. Now if you’re watching this right now, hopefully you’re one of those thrivers who’s decided to be proactive. And so you’re watching this video before you find yourself in the funk. Yes. But Wes, let’s say that I’m in the funk. I’m in the funk like James Brown. I’m in the funk like Parliament. I’m in the funk like George Clinton. Bill Clinton did play the saxophone, so he also brought the funk. Little funk there. But if I’m in the funk and I find myself partnered with a guy who’s going through a divorce, he’s going through some financial issues, bankruptcy, what can I do without a buy-sell agreement? You guys can always mutually agree to do something, depending on how far along it is in the process. If a divorce judge or a bankruptcy trustee has already tried to tie something to that business interest, it’s a little too late. But if you’re just getting into the funk, then you can always try to go ahead and mutually agree and get one done real quick. Otherwise, it’s gonna be a matter probably of just default state law issues where you’re just gonna have to have an attorney tell you what the default rules are in the state and you’re stuck. Well, with that inspirational story, I’m gonna crack open a Perrier here real quick. Awesome. Would you like a Perrier? I’ll pass, thank you. You know, this thing has no calories and I think no flavor. That’s an amazing deal. I thought forever. How did it go? There goes that sponsorship. Well, I mean, if you prefer flavor neutrality, legally speaking, this is the beverage for you. But, okay. So now we’re moving here into this question I have for you. Okay. And again, we’re not going to quote you as far as a specific stat. I just wanted to know in general, if you say you meet with 10 business owners, what percentage of them in your mind have a buy-sell agreement in place? I would say maybe half have one. Half? Half. So if you’re watching this, if it’s not you, it’s somebody you know. And if you’re sharing an account with somebody, somebody in that room is definitely not having a buy-sell agreement in place. That’s true. Right? Yeah. I know in the world of small business, we’ve got a lot of things we’re doing, a lot of hats we’re wearing, and one of the last things we think about is things that aren’t happening right now. Yes. The things that happen in the future. Sometimes we do a poor job of planning. But if you had to stress on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most important thing in the world, 1 being it doesn’t matter, how important is it to have a buy-sell agreement in place? Say 10. Wow. And quickly. Really? Yes. Because like we talked about, once something happens and you’re in the funk, it’s a little too late. If you’re in the funk, I want you to ask yourself this question. Here we go. We’re going to ask ourself this question. If you’re in the funk, if you’re out of the funk, either way, ask yourself this question. What are some of the tough questions, Wes? What are some of these questions that we should be asking? Tell the Thrivers, what is the question they should be asking themselves? It’s, you shouldn’t not have a question, do I need one? You need one. Then the questions you have to ask are, who can buy it? Are you going to limit it to who can, can your partner go out and sell to anybody? How much are we going to buy it for? How do we figure out when we get to that point? Who can buy it? And how much? I think are the two big ones. And how much should it cost if I want to make one of these buy-sell agreements? Right now, I’m going, okay, I’m tired of all this funk. I’m not going to have Parliament and George Clinton and all the James Brown in my office. No funk. I’m going to go ahead and just take action. How much is it going to cost me? So you start out around 500, 750, and go from there depending on how big your business is, how complicated it is. In my shameless attempt to just make sure that we’re not slamming other attorneys, we’re not praising a particular attorney, but there’s attorneys of all scopes, good attorneys, bad attorneys out there. You’re recommending find a reputable attorney with some references, make sure you find a good attorney? Right. We always recommend ask around, find someone who’s happy with their attorney around in your area or call an attorney that represents a business that you like. What if I know a guy? What if I say I know a guy? He’s not an attorney, but he went to law school for a while. He went on to LegalZoom.com. He downloaded, nothing wrong with LegalZoom.com. He went on to Libidibidibid.com. He goes on there. He found a template. Can we just do that? No. Every situation is a little different. Every state’s got different laws. So it’s important to find out either someone who practices in multiple states or a good attorney in your state. So if I know a guy who knows a guy named Vinnie, I shouldn’t do that? You should probably stay away from Vinnie’s unless they have a law degree. Okay. Wes, I appreciate you talking about buy-sell agreements, allowing me to talk about Perrier. And for anybody who’s watching this episode right now, apparently if you go on to this Perrier website, you have a chance to stay in a beach house in Miami. So that’s pretty great. So despite the flavor neutrality, that’s a great value. Well, Wes, as always, I just want to remind you that I’ll see you later. All right. All right, Clay. Welcome to your own studio, thrive15.com. I was waiting here. I knew you’d eventually show up. I’m glad that we’re doing these five-minute bursts here. And the goal is to define certain topics that possibly aren’t known by everybody. You even say many entrepreneurs don’t know the true definitions of these topics, correct? And not only that, we don’t know why we even need these things. Because we’re talking about something today that I didn’t even think I needed until like seven years ago. Okay, so that topic today is bookkeeping. We’re gonna be defining what that means, and how it applies to your business, and why you need to watch this episode right here. And we’re also talking about, maybe we can talk about why there’s a crazy sound in the background. I love it. If we have time, we’ll get back to it. Good, there’ll be sounds, stay focused. So the definition that we have here of bookkeeping refers to the task of recording the amount, date, and source of all business revenues and expenses. Bookkeeping is essentially the starting point of the accounting process. Only with accurate bookkeeping numbers can we meaningfully account for what’s been done. I’m gonna ask our super producers to put this on the screen right here, okay? But here we go. One, if you can just kind of give me the fingers yeah well I need the amount good two we need the date date three we need the source give us the source and the source Luke use the source Luke okay and that’s for all business related revenues and expenses so go ahead give you two more revenue and expenses BAM okay that’s what it is okay so again you have to have the amount the amount the date date the source thank you Luke then you have to have the business revenue and expenses. Okay, and you have to have all of that to create the bookkeeping. If you don’t have this information, you need a bookkeeper. So I’m just saying, if you don’t have it, you need… Now, some of you are going, no, man, I don’t need this information. I have my own system. No, you don’t. And I’ve been ironed… I’ve been audited by the IRS and ironed. That was an interesting word. We’ll be talking about that on a later episode. But I’ve been audited by the IRS and I can only tell you that it is a special feeling. It’s like when you have a friend who you kind of remember from like third grade who hits you up on Facebook and he says, hey buddy, we should get together. And you really don’t know who he is, but you go ahead and agree. And then you show up at Panera Bread or some kind of restaurant and he ambushes you with some high pressure sales presentation. That’s what it’s like having the IRS ninjas come to your office and help aggressively examine your expenses. When did that happen to you? In 2007 I was asked by the United States Small Business Administration to fill out a packet of information because I had been nominated for the Entrepreneur of the Year Award. I filled out the packet of information and after I filled out the packet of information at some point I got a call from the IRS not congratulating me on my award. What? No, no, no. They didn’t send you a gift or anything? No. What they did is they said we’re going to be coming to your office now. Okay. Actually, they said we’re in your office now and we are here to help you discover your, again, the amount, the date, the source of all business revenues and expenses. And that’s what they did. So if you don’t hire a bookkeeper, they get to help you keep your books. That’s wonderful. So here’s my one issue though. What if I don’t like doing that? Well, if you don’t like doing this, we have to hire somebody to do this. It really has to get done though. Yeah, I’m just being real, like as we’re growing Thrive, I wanna spend like, I don’t know, 0% of my day doing this, but I have to know those numbers. For not only myself, but for, again, it’s sort of like a rain gauge. And let’s just say that I’m obsessed with rain. You set the rain gauge out, you know how much rain came in. You know that kind of stuff. Well, if you’re into rain and tracking weather patterns, you want to know that. Because if not, you might just speculate and go, it rained four inches. Yeah, but this is more than a fun little hobby. This is something we’ve got to do. This is real life, this is real talk, this has to happen. This is as real as one of those very touching segments on Oprah. Well, Clay, one reason why I love seeing next to you, not just your aesthetic beauty, but the fact that you can talk to us about this topic and draw from real experiences. I mean, this is not theory. Clay did not go to school to study accounting. He’s experienced this. He knows what happens when you don’t focus on bookkeeping. I’m going to stop joking for a second because this is terrible. My wife and I would cry. Like when I say cry, as in like tears leaving our face, we’re getting so dehydrated that we almost pulled our hamstring. It’s because you didn’t have air conditioning. No, because we were getting audited in this fear. Of getting these letters and being told that you owe money and the bills are massive. And they happen to hire an accountant to go back in the past, they call it forensic accounting, they’re researching in the past to see what you might have done. That’s crazy. You want to talk about some marital drama? That makes it exciting. I mean, my wife and I had some drama. And you know, you say when you’re working out, if you cause stress, you get buff. Our marriage was getting buff. That’s not good. We were getting stressed out. We were growing stronger. Well I thank you for sitting down and sharing with us your experiences and giving us action steps on how to deal with bookkeeping. And I want to say this for anybody who’s right now thinking like, I’d like to date Caleb. He’s not available. He’s not available. He’s going to get married soon. And I just want you to know that. He’s not here yet, but just, I’m sorry. Just telling you. Rachel Fawcett, how are you, my friend? Hi, Clay. How are you? I am doing well. And I am excited to talk to you about this subject because you are a creative genius, which I think a lot of people in our population would say that means you have ideas that you don’t do, but you do them. So you’re one of these creative people who’s a doer, and you’re able to harness these great ideas and do something with it. And we’re going to be talking today about brainstorming and your philosophy of fill a room with balloons and pop your way out. So I’m going to just turn it over to you. What do you mean by fill the room with balloons and pop your way out? So I really believe in really, really coming up with outrageous ideas to tackle a problem. So if a client comes to us, or if we’re creating something on our own, that we would really, really, really think of outrageous ideas. I’m like, big, big, big. We’re bigger than Google ideas, like bigger than Google? Like what? Like slow down. I mean, think of like incredible ideas. And so when I say fill a room with balloons and pop your way out, I mean, fill, literally, you know, come up with the ideas and fill the air and, you know, fill pieces of paper and notebooks full with like insane ideas, but then start popping them down and kind of weeding out to figure out where you’re at, and what are ideas that we can actually harness and turn into a product and that will be approachable and things like that. I’m going to reverse that, I guess contrast that to what most people are doing. I see business owners all the time who have two employees, maybe five. The average American business, according to the SBA, has 10 employees or less. So we’re talking like 90% of the people watching this, you have 10 employees or less. And a lot of people are saying, well, gosh, because I only have 10 employees, we couldn’t do this. I couldn’t do that. So I guess I’ll just do this. And so their ideas are very small. They’re not engaging mentally. They’re not stretching people. You’re saying go big first big go big go big go big and even if it’s like you could never Afford to get the you know get a yacht on the lake and have a big party Like if you can’t do that, but like throw it out there But because you might be able to like get your friends canoe and get out there I mean, I feel like you can you’ve got it like at least Expand your mind beyond that and then come down with a reality, you know, weeding out those ideas and figuring out, filling the room up and then popping it, you know, popping them down and really kind of weeding out and editing that thought process. You know, recently I’ve worked with a few businesses that have a desire to be successful and I say successful like small, like safe, and I said, hey, if your ideas don’t freak you out and maybe scare your partner or cause you to be like, oh no, we couldn’t do that. They’re maybe not big enough. They’re not big enough. And so I was talking to one lady and I said, hey, with your business, I believe that you can be a national brand. You’re that good. You’ve got to make your packaging look national. Because right now, it looks local. Right. And I can tell you, this is a super specific example. She changed her packaging. And her packaging started looking as good as national stores. Sure. I started to notice her kind of pumping up a little bit. Right. And now I’ve noticed her ideas, kind of their more national ideas. Like, we could open up another store here and another one there. And I’m going, what? You’re thinking big? And it’s just more fun to think big, isn’t it? Right. And then when you think big, bigger things happen. I love it. I love it. And so if you’re watching this right now and you’re kind of going, how do I think big? There is a book called The Magic of Thinking Big, which I am a huge fan of. We’ll put the book graphic on the screen here. It’s phenomenal because The Magic of Thinking Big is about this very idea. But then if you’re going, well, that’s just a book, why don’t you go over to handmadecharlotte.com and just look at some of these awesome brands that a super wonderful mother of five, homeschooling mother of five, somebody just like you is out there doing. And I just, you are inspiring many men and women and I just want to thank you so much for thinking big and having that audacity to dream big because it inspires so many people. If you’re talking to someone right now who’s maybe thinking small, what would be your final little bit of encouragement for that person? I would say don’t be afraid, you know, to think big and, you know, get a piece of paper right now, right when this little clip ends, and start thinking about the zaniest ideas you’ve ever thought and then go from there and write 10 ideas behind it and see what you come up with. Awesome. Thank you so much, my friend. Thank you. 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, is that when you have a business that’s successful and you’re in your mind, your expert opinion, would you need profits to get your team to get you to your goals? Yeah, because if you have a 15 million dollar business, but you have 15 million dollars of expenses, it’s kind of pointless. Holy crap! Alright, so the question I would have here for you, if you could take like, I don’t know, 10 minutes or less and see if you could save 3,000 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 a sane mind, why would 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 don’t understand how you set the website this tree is a symbol of the spirit of the Griswold family Christmas that’s clear, ok, 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. We getting there, right buddy? We getting there, right buddy? There’s probably some, someone out there. Okay. They 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 thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash hard. Hard it because you can compare rates you can save money and you know the big 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 Profit deals It’s a profit deal. Takes the pressure off. JT, is there any other reason why somebody would not be willing to take ten 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. Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm. Mm? Stop looking at me, swan. Well, let me tell you a good story here real quick here. I actually, years ago, compared rates with this company here. It’s called IPS. It’s Integrated Payment Services. And I scheduled a consultation. I don’t know if 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. Or 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 case, my particular case, I save over $20,000 a year. Holy crap! Wow. Which is, uh, you know, like, uh, groceries when my wife goes to the organic stores. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great. Okay. Oh, God. Everything okay, ma’am? Oh, it’s just that you’ve only scanned a few items and it’s already 60 bucks. I’m so scared. OK, 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 Ridgway, it’s from Ridgway. 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 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. And 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, you know, asking our customers for reviews. And now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pessimon 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, 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 the first we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. It’s incredible but the reason why we have that success by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews. That way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists. Everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast like Jared had mentioned that has really really contributed to our success but that like 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. The last three years, our customer base had pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah, and so we didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in. But Thrive helped us with that. You know, they implemented those systems, and they taught us those systems. They taught us the knowledge that we needed in order to succeed. Now it’s been a grind, absolutely it’s been a grind this last year, but we’re getting those fruits from that hard work and the diligent effort that we’re able to put into it. So again, we were in a rut, Thrive helped us get out of that rut, and if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it, do the action, and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s gonna take in order to really succeed. So, we just want to give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore. I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients 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-turn-key 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 Crocker, the head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day, he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers, and web developers, 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 6-8 weeks he’s doing reawaken America tours. Every 6-8 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 startups, go from startup to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. Like 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 like 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 the most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time, a coach is actually helping you get to the best you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that we became friends. My most impressive thing is when I was shadowing him one time, we went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it, I’m going to turn it down.” Because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. 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. Anyway, just an amazing man. He’s impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate. Anytime I’ve gotten 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 Thrive15. 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 two years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? It’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team. And by team, I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing, and this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen, and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales which is awesome but Ryan is a really great salesman so we didn’t need that we needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems into manuals and scripts and actually build a team so now that we have systems in place we’ve gone from one to ten locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd. We’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. The Thrivetime Show, two-day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13-point business systems that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re 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 going to be the best business workshop ever, and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see it. 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 their 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 I’m looking, we’ve been good friends 7, 8 years and I’ve got doubled 5 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 new, 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 they 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. And so that’s really what it’s all about. So 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, or let’s say 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 2010, is that right? 2011 maybe? Maybe further down the road, maybe 2013? 2012. Okay, so 2012 and at that time I was five years removed from the DJ business. 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? There was some interaction where you and I first connected. I just remember that somehow you and I went to Hideaway Pizza. Do you remember when we first reconnected? Yeah, well we had that speaking thing. Oh, there it was! So it’s 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 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 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 about business in terms of the different categories. I don’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 are called 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. 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, you know, 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 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 would 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 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 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 challenging yourself. Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.