Entrepreneur | Candor Must Be A Constant With David Robinson And Dr. Z

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 too, kid. What we got, Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks. I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As the father of five, that’s where I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi It’s C and Z up on your radio And now 3, 2, 1, here we go! We started from the bottom, now we’re here We started from the bottom and that’s what we gotta do David, thank you for joining me, my friend Thank you, my pleasure Hey, there are millions of people watching this throughout the world who are running businesses they’re starting companies and they have no idea how to be candid. As an example, when I ran my first business, I know that whenever I had a staff problem, I would tend to speak in vast generalities. I would never want to talk to someone one-on-one and to tell them the specific issue I had. I like to dance around the issue. I never wanted, because I was always worried about offending people. And it was just, I could imagine working for me had to be very frustrating because you had no idea what I actually thought about you because I would kind of give you that that false kindness stuff right and so this whole concept of being candid is not something that most people are very familiar with yet it’s something that all business owners need to be familiar with right so and you’re in your mind what does it mean to be candid is to at least let them know where they stand. Being honest and forthright in your criticism, both positive and negative. One of the great things for me is being from the sports arena, I got the candor all the time. Oh, really? And whether I liked it or not, I’d go out to another arena and the fans from the other team would tell me everything they thought about me. So, candor was something I had no shortage of. But I think it’s good because I think we need to hear both the good and the bad. And that’s what’s important. When you’re being candid with someone, whether it’s someone you love or someone on your job, you’ve got to share both the good and the bad. I think that makes it more acceptable. It makes it more human. If you’re just sharing the bad, you will have problems. Your mind in business, you own businesses now, since retiring you went out and started a school. Let’s just say you hired somebody and somebody is in a position of leadership and for whatever reason they’re just not delivering. They’re supposed to get this done and they just didn’t get it done. How do you deliver candid feedback? Specifically, what do you do? Is your move to pull somebody aside and talk to them kind of privately? What do you do whenever you have to give somebody that direct feedback that might not necessarily always be positive? I can’t do that periodically. If we have evaluations every six months, I can’t wait until six months and then tell them, oh, I’ve been nice to you every day, but I failed to tell you that I’m really disappointed with this part of your performance. I think on a day-to-day basis they have to know. It’s just like, you know, you need to give them instant feedback, like you have a pet. You better tell that pet right at the time he’s peeing on your rug that you should not be peeing on my rug, or else later on he’s not going to remember that that was the bad thing he was doing. I think we need to be really diligent about being immediate in our feedback when we’re sharing with them so that when it comes time for evaluation we can say, you know, you did a really good job except for the times you peed on the rug. I was a little bit disappointed with that and that actually may be enough for termination. Then you have actual reasons to cite. You have things that you can point to. It’s very difficult if you have not told anybody about their shortcomings and then you come to evaluation time and you have to write something negative about someone and it comes as a complete surprise to them that you did not like that. Why do most business owners not tend to give people feedback immediately? Why is the natural inclination to not say anything at all until we get to that evaluation? Why is what you’re saying so different than what we would naturally all want to do? I think part of the reason is that the expectations around the workplace are not clear. And sometimes if they’re not particularly clear, you don’t feel entirely comfortable stepping in. But we should be very clear about our culture. We should know. Around my house, my children have a very clear picture of what I expect of them. And when we step outside of those boundaries, it should not be hard for me to say, well, sweetheart, you know, you really kinda shouldn’t talk to your mom that way because, no, you know you’re not supposed to talk to your mom that way. That has been made clear to you. So if you ever raise your voice to your mother like that again, we will have a problem. We? So, you know, I can make my point and I can drive that point home in a short period of time because that understanding is there. And I think in the workplace we need to have those understandings. That’s part of culture. When the culture is in place, then we can easily correct. I want to bring up a specific example or a specific question because Coach Popovich has been one of the most successful coaches in the NBA for a long time. You guys had a mutual respect. It seems like you guys had an affection. You still have a relationship with him. But it also would seem to be likely that there are some times in the heat of the battle or the competition where maybe you made a mistake. Maybe we forgot to run the right play or maybe there was a miscommunication. Happened once or twice. How would he deliver that feedback to you towards the end of your career there as you were a peer. I mean you were, because I think a lot of businesses what happens is we have a guy who we’ve worked with for years and we respect that guy we don’t want to hurt his feelings but how did coach Popovich give you direct and candid feedback? How did that happen? Coach Popovich would turn around to the bench and say Malik go get David out of there and that would be my feedback. Oh okay. No you know No, really, he was very cool and calm in the way that he delivered that correction and that feedback. He was very careful not to embarrass me, but as soon as I got back to the bench, one of the assistant coaches would come over and tell me exactly what I did wrong, and then the next day in the film session, we would rewind the film and watch that over again. So I had plenty of positive feedback about what I did wrong. And like I said, the expectation level was set. It was clear what I was supposed to be doing. I knew when I was stepping out of bounds, when I did not cover the guy. I did not rotate to the baseline. I did not put my hand up on that shot. All those were very clear to me. So I think that if you can be clear ahead of time about what the expectations are, then it is not quite so difficult to give that negative feedback. It is not quite so difficult to give that negative feedback. So it sounds like if I’m trying to distill this and really put in some good, you know, for the next time I have to be candid, some good rules here is one, you want to give that immediate feedback. Absolutely. Two, you want to do it respectfully. He’s very respectful of you. But the third, you want to be clear about those expectations. That is it. You have to lay the groundwork. And I think those three things will allow you to, at any time or any place, give good constructive feedback. And that can either lead to promotion or that can lead to letting someone go. But at least they knew it was coming because the feedback was there. Now I imagine, and correct me if I’m wrong, but this is kind of how I imagine the NBA season working for you. You were in the league for 14 years. So every year you get a few new guys. maybe a free agent or two you bring in. That free agent is going to bring a little bit of his own culture with him because he might have been the man or he used to be here one of the top players and then you come into your locker room and you have your own culture there in San Antonio. And because you’re the leader, I would imagine that occasionally you had to point out to somebody, hey this is not how we’re gonna do things here with the Spurs. We’re going to do it the right way. And when I say right, this is what I mean. Our way. By right, I mean our. Our. OK. So I guess what I say, how would you deliver candid feedback during those situations to new players that were coming onto the team? And maybe not even intentionally, but maybe they were violating some rule, or maybe they didn’t understand the expectations. How did you provide that feedback as as a player during those times? Well, I mean, I think we you know, we bring them into the group we would Kind of try to read their personality because some people like Some people are more Combative confrontive some people are more laid-back. You try to read the person you try to understand. What’s the best way? I did not like people getting in my face. I’ve never been a fan of the direct yelling method. The direct yelling method. The direct cursing method. That was not my favorite. So the best way to get to me was to sit me down and say, David, I don’t think you’re doing this the right way. This is how I’d like for you to do it. Great, I can understand that. Let’s move forward, I’ll do it. Some people do actually like being confronted, being told at the moment, and they need a little kick in the pants. I think you need to be sensitive to what type of people you have around you and try to deliver the information in a way that can be absorbed. Are you okay with being on the record of not being a fan of the cursing method? I’m okay with being on the record on that one. Okay, alright. Now, when you launched Carver Academy, you put a lot of money into it and a lot of time, I think more importantly though, you put your heart and soul, your passion, you felt like that’s what God had called you to do, was to launch this school. And so when somebody’s hurting the school or doing things that might hurt the school’s reputation or maybe not do things the way you think they should be done, I can imagine where you could get, if you’re not careful, emotional about it. I mean, you’re going, what are you doing? I mean, I’m not saying that you said that but I’m saying I could see where you would start to say What are you doing? How do you take? How did you take the emotion or how did you Matt didn’t manage the emotion during those times? How did you you know what I mean when you’re you’re launching the school that you care so much about a lot of these small Business owners have a business that they care so much about right and then somebody Messes it up, or how did you try to separate the emotion from personal to professional. I want to accomplish the goal. If we’re helping these children, that’s what I want to accomplish. I don’t think I’m right all the time. So you have to balance your concern and your attitude, your emotion, with is this the right thing. There were many times I was not correct and I had to listen and change my opinion. So I think you just need to separate your emotion. Is it personal? Are you lashing out because someone is taking away your authority or taking away your baby? Or are you concerned about the company, the organization, the direction? Are you concerned that this is a negative to the organization? And if you can separate those two things, I think you would deal with those entirely differently. The final question I have about being candid is a lot of times in companies we start to think we’re awesome. You know, our company, we’re starting to sell some stuff. In your case, maybe you’re winning some academic awards, maybe your school’s taking off. Maybe you get a write-up in a big publication, and so you’re starting to feel like, we are awesome. We are awesome. Maybe you just won a championship. I mean, we are awesome. But yet, the key to staying awesome is getting that candid feedback where you know how you can improve all the time. What sort of systems did you put in at Carver so that way everybody knew how you were doing? You know what I mean? So if I’m a staffer, if I’m a teacher, if I’m an administrator, what sort of systems did you put in place so that as an administrator or a staffer or as an employee, I got that candid feedback on a consistent basis? Right, yeah, I mean, the common term today is drinking the Kool-Aid. You start drinking the Kool-Aid and you’re like, oh yeah, we’re all so great. But you do need those periodic checks. And for us, we had a wonderful system of evaluations. With our teachers, we had evaluations every six weeks in how they were performing in the classroom. Every six weeks? Every six weeks, how they performed in the classroom. And then we had what we called curriculum-based assessments and how the students did in relation to the standards, the state standards, national standards, was a measure, a direct measure, of how the teachers performed in the classroom. And so we had a good system of feedback as well as evaluations for each position. So you know I think that that’s key. You know you need to be able to let people know and have those periodic assessments which which give you know positive or negative feedback and allows people to adjust. With your equity fund where you guys actually own buildings, do you try to collect feedback from tenants or some sort of feedback where you know how happy your tenants are, how well the property is being managed? Do you try to put in some systems there too? Not necessarily. For us, our clients are the people that invest in our business. So we want feedback from them. We need to get the And so they’re really our main clients. So, you know, we have a kind of a different measure in that business. And so I think for us that’s very important. How are we doing? And I think in the financial world it tends to be relatively simple. The Texas Teachers Association is not interested in anything but that bottom line. You know, we love you. We think you’re great. But how are you doing for our teachers? The fireman’s association or the police association, the pension fund, we tend to work with people who are interested in performance. That’s our large measure. Okay. In all things, in all areas of your business, it’s really important that we’re not given that false kindness. We’re given that… When somebody hears you say something positive, they need to know that it’s real. When they hear some constructive criticism, they need to know it’s real because people need to know where they stand. That’s why it’s nice, I think, in an office when you’re able to have some kind of evaluations and you see what does this person think of me or what does this person think of me, and you get some different directional input. I think it’s really critical because we do tend to see ourselves in one way and and a lot of times That’s not the way we’re perceived final point on candor Thrives all about being a successful person in the mid business and at home, and I know for me as a husband I’m always trying to get that candid feedback for my glorious wife because I show us points out to about Two to three things per day that I might be having area for improvement on where I can be a good wife. Yeah. And I think it’s important though, and personally we seek out feedback for how to be better. We need to make sure we’re getting candid feedback in all areas. Right. It’s tough to get candid feedback because we don’t like it. We don’t like to know when we’re not excelling and we’re not excellent. We like to think we are. Candid feedback is an outstanding gift and I think if we have or if we have the right mindset it can be the difference between being everything you want it to be and Falling miserably on your face. So so I mean it’s something we need to appreciate we need to teach our employees to appreciate And use it for our building up and and and not not let it destroy us. Dave, I appreciate you your candid feedback about being candid. It’s it’s great to hear direct feedback where you’re telling people specifically some of these things because I feel like we were watching the NBA games and we watch people win awards and have success and win championships and grow businesses but at the heart of that there’s always that candid feedback that helps us all get better so thank you so much for sharing. Well, thank you very much. Good. Appreciate it. Dr Z. Thank you for letting us invade your palace. I appreciate you and you bet great. Thank you You and all your team here. Well, you are you are wonderful. Not many people those invade their living room. So I had a choice well No here here We’re talking to me about today about being candid about being honest Even when the truth hurts now, I work with business owners all across the country. I know there’s people watching this right now who for whatever reason they cannot be honest with their staff, with their team, with themselves. It’s like this false kindness you know where they just can’t. So we’re gonna get into this. So Jack Welch, one of the top CEOs of all time, he’s the author of the book Winning, he talks a lot about the importance of being candid and direct with your employees, partners, and people you work with. In your mind, why is it so hard for most business owners, most business owners, to just be direct and candid? That’s an excellent question. And I think at the core of it is that part about us that doesn’t want to disappoint people, that doesn’t want to upset somebody. And so if you’re praising them, you’ve got good things to say. That’s easy to say, let’s be honest. I mean, if you’re like, hey, you did a great job today. I mean, that’s pretty easy to say. But if you have to walk up to someone and say, ah, fill in the blank, and it’s something you know they don’t want to hear, that’s difficult. I think it’s like, as you’re building Thrive, you know, one thing is because one of the first businesses I grew, it grew it to where we had about 80 DJs. You know, these guys are out DJing weddings and receptions and all that. Herding cats, I’ve heard. Herding cats, it’s rough. It was seriously crazy. I feel like it was that Steve Martin thing, juggling cats. But that was a tough deal. But it’s kind of prepared me for this, where with the medical businesses I work with, or I do consulting with, or with Thrive, I really don’t have a problem being candidate anymore. But I used to feel almost like a guilt. Like who am I to tell you that you’re not doing a good job because I’m also a flawed human. Even though I’m the boss. Yeah. I feel a little bit of guilt with that. Absolutely. So what would you say to the entrepreneur who’s struggling with guilt a little bit and kind of being candid? I want to be candid, but I just talked to a guy today, actually today, and he says the manager of this store just is not respecting our rules. I want to tell her, but then again, I’ve messed up sometimes too. And I’m like, listen, you’re the owner. So if you’ve been late before, that’s a problem. Never be late again. Don’t do that. But if she’s not respecting your rules, you just got to tell her. Absolutely. But he felt that guilt. What would you say? You got to get over it. You got to do it. If that means you’re practicing on a friend, that means looking in the mirror and practicing your line to yourself. I mean you just have to do it. It’s a necessary part. None of us like to prune our beautiful plants, but yet it makes them so much better the next growing season. And so, you know, if you love them, you’ll prune them. If you want them to be better, you’ll prune them. And the pruning is being the candid, because obviously when you’re telling them something they don’t want to hear, it’s obviously something you want them to work on or change. Let’s break down the word prune just for a second, just in case somebody watching this maybe doesn’t quite grasp this. Like a tree, if it’s growing the wrong direction, when you prune, you’re basically cutting off the limbs that aren’t needed. If you didn’t, the tree would start to grow to one way or the other, right? Correct. It’s going the wrong direction. Or, you also know that in the agriculture world, if you, by pruning it, you’re also eliminating the dead, but you’re also stimulating the plant to grow more branches. And so, yes, and so it’s a very healthy component, but in order to do it, you are taking part of the plant off. And so it was just an analogy that I was using, but whenever you’re, when you’re bringing something that they don’t want to hear, it typically it’s something that you don’t want to see again, and therefore something you want them to change and therefore you’re giving them the opportunity. I’m gonna ask you this here there’s an example there if I’m working for you and I’m in the front if I’m in the front desk okay and I say thank you for calling Dr. Z’s and I sound tired. Yeah. Thank you for calling Dr. Z’s. If I do that I’m sure you’ve heard someone if you know when they answer the phone they sound tired. Yes. How do you immediately correct me or what do you say to me? I Go get an energy drink and I force it down. I You know, I I pull you to the side and I say hey listen Here’s the proper way that we do that now when I was small Of course, I was pretty much everybody’s supervisor and I was the one that did that You know, I’m very very big on proper channels and in a corporation very you know in a business I should say And so if I hear that what I would do is I would go to their supervisor now, and I would say hey listen I do a lot of secret shopping I send a lot of people that will call I’ll send a lot of people to go into my stores go into my businesses so little secret agents and they will Analyze things and so so sometimes I get them back I don’t see it first time I get it back as a report and what I’ll do then is I’ll sit down with that supervisor and say, hey, listen, you’re they’re not answering the phone correctly. And here’s the things that we need to work on. You just said three just powerful, like drinking from a fire hose of awesomeness here, things that just blow in my mind. One is you said you’re really big into channels. Can we go back and you hammer on what you mean by that? OK, for example, if I have if I have if you work at the front desk and you’re you’re upset at one of your co-workers and you come to me with that problem. I’m gonna look at you and I’m gonna say, Clay, before you talk to me about this, have you talked to your supervisor? And you’re gonna say, no, I have not. And I’m gonna say, is the problem with your supervisor? No, it is not. Then you need to go talk to your supervisor before you come talk to me. Have an open door policy, I’d love to hear you. I’d love to listen to your problem. Stay in that channel, stay in that lane. Bingo. And then you said that you want to keep these people in the channel, but at the same time you want a mystery shop. Absolutely. So you want to send somebody else? I’ll do it myself sometimes. I’ll call up with a little voice and, hey, how you doing? I’d like to get an exam today. When can I do it? You would literally call your own business sometimes just to see what happens absolutely all the time I would sneak in but I’m not very good with disguises So now I know for our company hiring mystery mystery shoppers was huge Mm-hmm and I basically would pay Girls who looked like they could be the age of someone getting married and I would pay them to Go to the bridal shows and all actually show up for appointments and go through the whole process just to see what the problem was. Sure. You do this. Absolutely. You have to. So you have these three action items I’m hearing here. One is stay in your channels. Bingo. Two is you’re gonna mystery shop. You’re a smart learner. And the third is you’re gonna tell people though pretty quickly. I mean you’re gonna tell the channel, the head of the channel, hey supervisor you need to talk to Karen at the front desk because this is something’s problem. Yeah and get on it and take care of it now. You won’t talk to Karen though, directly, the front desk lady, you talk to her. That would be the proper channel. I would be remiss by not going to the proper channel. What happens if you as a boss went directly to the person? Why would you not do that? Well, because I’m not giving the supervisor, I’m devaluing them and I’m not giving them the opportunity to do what I hired them to do and that’s to supervise and to train and to coach the people that are underneath them. Love it. Now, this is huge here, but Jack Welch says that we need to face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be. Oh, but it’s fun to wish, isn’t it? What does that mean when you’re managing employees? So let’s just talk about it. You’ve got, let’s say, John, who’s in sales. His job is to sell glasses. And he cannot sell anything. His upsell percentage is terrible. He’s not ever selling the upgrade for the lens protectant or the nice frame. He’s rough. Bad placement of an employee possibly. And then you have Sarah who’s on fire. Sarah is just selling. She’s just top drop and roll? Oh, on fire in the sense of selling. Okay. Metaphysically, she’s on fire. Well, now she’s on fire, get a rug and wrap it around her. She’s selling things. So she’s the best. This guy’s not that good. Talk to me about how we deal with that situation where we face reality and we say, well, this person is, how do you do it? Is John a good guy? Yeah, he’s a good guy. Great guy. He’s a team player, good guy. He’s related to you because it’s small business. I find him something else to do. Okay. Because the odds of me changing him, taking an introvert, for example, and making him into an extrovert, is people change seldom, remember that. People change seldom. Seldom, this just in from our home office off the coast of this chair. Bingo. Now, so what I would do is I’d probably find him a job in the lab where he could use his hardworking, dedicated skills, and he could, where he’s not having to sell, he’s having just to produce. It’s handed to him, he sees it, he makes it and hands it off. So there’s different jobs, and that’s part of a good manager, is understanding the different personality traits that people have. And when you interview them, to place them in your business, that they’re gonna best utilize themselves. I’m getting more out of this particular training than I have got out of almost any other segment. This is unbelievable. So I’m gonna keep going here. So here we go. Now Jack Welch says you gotta be candid with everybody. You need everybody. So when you started out in business, did you struggle with the idea of being candid? Yeah, I mean, the first few times it’s always tough. I mean, whenever you’re telling people, and of course, you’re kind of new to it, so you really don’t know yourself. And maybe all that you know is being read in a book or, you know, it’s not practical stuff. I mean, you’ve heard somebody else tell you that’s what you’re supposed to do. So the first few times you kind of stumble along, and it is a little trial and error and you kind of match it to your style. For a lot of times, I would try to be light-hearted about it. I would try to be the nice guy about it at first until I had to be not that way. In other words, I would say, hey, instead of saying, you didn’t answer the phone correctly, John, let’s say now we’re back to it’s just me and you work. Yeah, you know you answer the phone like you’re tired. I said hey Hey Hey instead of answering the phone that let’s try this. What do you think about this? You know and pretend like you’re You know and you might roleplay you might okay, let’s practice a few times I’m gonna call you and you know it notice see if you can get me more excited than that Come on, step it up a notch. Instead of saying, hey, you did it wrong, and don’t do it like that again, I might first try to… Coach you up a little bit. Bingo. Now, I’m gonna give you an example of what I see a lot of business owners do. I mean, I’ve coached with companies, and what’s funny is, once a business owner gets it, they don’t do this anymore. But here, I’m gonna role play with you what they typically do, and you just tell me what I’m doing. Alright, here we go. So I say we’ll play. And what role am I playing? Your name is Robert and you’re the front desk guy. Okay. And I’m a bad boss, behaving badly. Okay. So here we go. Hey Robert, do you have a second? Sure, boss. Hey, you, I think you’re a good guy and. Well, thanks boss. Yeah, you’re doing really good on the phone and I just, I was thinking maybe if you want to maybe look at you know trying to connect better with our customers. What are you saying boss? I think you’re great just try to connect a little better. Okay sure boss anything you want you’re the boss. Now let’s say that that’s what I said to you. I just busted you saying some crazy mess on the phone to somebody and I just as I see this all time. No eye contact always looking down Yeah, never looking at the person. Yeah saying general statements about how what of a good person they are sure Talk to me about what I can do better Well, first of all, you got to look at him. You got to be honest with them and you got to say hey listen Robert You’re kind of sucking it answering the phone. Okay, you’re you’re not enthusiastic You sound like you’re about ready to go to sleep. I can hardly hear you. Yeah, that was me on the other end, by the way. We’re gonna have to change some things up. And here’s what we’re gonna do. Okay, here’s what I’d like for you to do. And we’re gonna do it until you do it right, okay? Are you in, Robert? Yeah, I can do it. Okay, because you’re a good guy. All right, here we go. That’s how you do it. Yeah, I mean, you have your own style. I mean, you have your own, I mean, obviously, depending upon your relationship with that person, you play off of that You know now every one of your employees you have a relationship with some of them It’s very little and some of them. It’s quite a bit, so you know as you come to those times of adjustment You know you’ve hopefully filled up that love bucket of relationship That you can dip into that and you can it’s not as caustic You know you can have a little bit of hey, you know we’ve had some we’ve had some good times, we’ve had some relationship, we’ve built, we’re doing this business together, we’re a team, we’re on the same team, we’re rowing the boat together. And so it doesn’t all have to be just this robotic caustic. What about this, there’s a scenario here. Tonight, I just dealt with a guy on the way here, I was talking to the guy, he owns a hair salon. Okay. And he has a manager that’s crazy disrespectful to him. The manager, someone he put in charge of the channel of people is being disrespectful and the person didn’t do their job today and they respond back to a call from their boss with the text message that reads, I’m off the clock after being disrespectful today. Well I’ll tell you this, the gentleman that owns the hair salon, he’ll put up with that as long as he wants and then he’ll do the right thing and fire that person. Okay, that’s what you do. Absolutely. If someone’s disrespectful, I mean, it’s pretty. Yeah, I mean, to sit there and say, Hey, listen, I’m gonna pay you how much more money do I have to pay you for you to love me? I mean, it’s just no, it comes with the job did disrespect zero tolerance. And guess what people change? How often sell them? Thank you, bam. Now here’s the deal. There’s a gift shop in Dallas that I used to do some work with. And this lady, neat lady, but she had people working for her who were like 10 years in. OK. Well, and they hadn’t performed, I think, since they started. She has a culture now of these people that don’t perform. And you’d probably say, then, the reason why your business isn’t growing is because you’re putting up with it as long as you want to put up with it. Bingo. OK. Yeah, I mean, that’s the thing about it is that it’s a sad state of the affairs, but so many people have gotten so used to mediocrity that, I mean, I’ll have managers call me up and say, I want to give Billy Bob a raise. I’m like, okay, well, tell me, tell me about Billy Bob’s performance. Well, he comes to work on time. Okay. He does his job. Okay. And he doesn’t cause any drama. I’m like, okay. He needs a raise. I’m like, wait a second. You just went through the three things that I’m paying Billy Bob to do currently. And because it’s such a, it’s such a rare thing that someone does, the things that we tell them to do, that now it should be, you know, it’s automatically a race, you know So I was just that mindset of you know of people with the understanding of of what is expected and there’s just so much Sloppiness that’s tolerated out there that when you do find someone that’s doing it, right? It’s just the head and shoulders above everything. You’re just like oh my it’s just almost like Wow to hammer home that point there was an article that appeared in a Forbes magazine in April 2nd of 2013 by the writer Susan Adams and she wrote that this study found and it just blew my mind that 42% of the companies that they surveyed, the employees who are doing the worst job reported on their surveys that they were the most engaged. So basically the 42% in these companies, 42% of the companies, so they interviewed 10 companies, four of these companies are finding that the person who is the worst at their job, the boss says this person’s the worst, that person on the survey is saying, I’m the best employee, I’m the most engaged. And there’s a disconnect. So they think they’re doing awesome, and the boss thinks they’re doing bad. And what’s terrible is that when- Where’s the disconnect there? What happens is when they run out of money because no one’s performing, then they have to lay off the person who’s never done a good job. They get blindsided. And it’s a weird deal. So in your mind, how common, if you had to guess a percentage based off the people you’ve met, you know, what percentage of the employee, the employers that you can just get a guess, in your mind, the business owners, do you feel like are candid in the way that Jack Welch, CEO of GE wanted us to be? What percentage of employers do you feel like are candid with their staff? I would say that probably a fourth, maybe. Maybe not even that high. Yeah, see that’s what I’m thinking. And there’s a, so if I’m an entrepreneur watching this, and let’s just say that I own a pizzeria. Okay. And I have a dude. Thin crust or thick crust? It’s a thick crust. It’s an Italian, it’s the Chicago deep dish style. Oh, that’s right. And I have a guy who just, for whatever reason, this happened to me the other night. I went to a deep dish pizza place and the guy says to me, I said, how are you? He’s my waiter. He says, the last customer on shift, hey, if we can just kind of make this quick. That’s what he said to me. Now I know the manager saw him say it and I didn’t see any immediate correction. I was watching to see if it would happen, but it wasn’t happening. What would you say in that situation again? Because I’m just trying to role play some scenarios so people can hear how a boss such as yourself would handle this? Immediately. First of all, if he had a supervisor, I would go down the channels. If he had a supervisor, if he, if there was somebody above him, I would go to them. But let’s say I’m that person. I would call them to the side and not in front of the customer. I would let them know that what they did was inappropriate. I would coach them up on what I would prefer them to do. Now, if he has a history of doing these kinds of things, I shouldn’t be surprised Because people change seldom. Thank you BAM And so if this is the kind of kid he is and I put up with it from now Then I’m the one that you look at the mirror and go what am I doing? Maybe I need to coach myself up a little bit. What if it’s forgetful Susan? She just always forgets to mail out the stuff on time, you know Cuz you are you have a medical practice and as you know you could lose your certification if certain things aren’t mailed in at time The right time if you don’t apply for certain things you don’t keep certain permits I mean there’s things you have to do to stay legal right what if forgetful Susan Doesn’t mail stuff out on time. I would I would go find remembering Betty Really Exactly okay, I mean so do you read the fire that something that important as you just put it? And I know this person is forgetful, and I know there’s a 50% chance they’re not going to, or put a number to it, that they’re not going to remember to do it. Who’s the bigger fool? Me keeping her in that position, or her, because she’s just doing what she’s always done. Do you feel ever bad when you have to let people go that aren’t performing? No. Okay. So because I am protecting my business, I’m protecting my baby, I’m protecting my livelihood, you know. I mean the day that they come to my house and feed me and write me a big check, then I might feel bad about it. But they don’t. I have two more scenarios. These are big. These are the kind of stuff that in America today, you know, we have 97% of all of our job growth, according to one study. SBA says at least 90% of all job growth is from people that have 10 employees or less. So we’re not talking about major corporations. We’re talking about people that have pizzerias, people that have small businesses. So if I’m in a small business and I have somebody who just has the look, you know that look, that tired, I don’t want to be there look? They’re doing the right thing, right? They’re going through the motions, but they just look in a meeting All the time when you’re trying to lead the meeting. You’re the boss. I’m yawning in your me. Mm-hmm all the time Yeah, how do you do with yawning guy? Openly yawning guy tired-looking guy every day. I mean, you know, I mean if you’ve got ten people Do you really want ten percent of your your staff to be mr. Yawning guy? I mean at some point you’ve got to look you’ve got to look at your people and say listen, and you know People are gonna change so this is what I’ve got. I’m not going to tell this guy, hey, listen, go to bed earlier. Oh, by the way, you know, I mean, yeah, there could be some medical function is why he’s not sleeping well, you know. But for the most part, I’m not going to step into his life and change him dramatically. You know, I’m just not going to do it. And guess what? I’m not a life coach. I’m here to run a business, OK? You’re not a life coach. I’m not a life coach. I love it. And so I’m here to run a business. You’re setting me free. Yes, freedom. He’s setting me free. Freedom, freedom, freedom. I feel so free. So if Mr. Yanni guy bothers you, you know what? You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to put up with it as long as I’m going to put up with it. And then what am I going to do? Yeah. I’m going to say, it’s just not working out. Okay. You need to go find something else. Final, final story. Final one. Because this happens in small businesses all across America. Okay? And everybody thinks, I don’t want anybody to think that, gosh, no one’s perfect. Don’t get me wrong. Yeah, I’m just giving you scenarios that I’m trying to. The key is, the key is, is you’ll put up with it as long as you want to put up with it. If this guy’s a top performer and your number one sales guy, I’ll put up with a little yawning every now and then. But you hear every day, everything’s in balance. Yeah, but OK. OK, let’s say that it’s Danny doesn’t remember how to clean the toilet janitor guy. OK, he just says, John, he’s a janitor. He’s a janitor. You’re paying him to clean the toilet. Yeah. And he just for whatever reason, he just can’t seem to just he needs to get it He needs to find a new he needs to be it does make a good janitor It’s kind of like it’s kind of like an eye doctor that can’t give can’t give a good eyeglass prescription I mean, it’s it’s I love how you see things in black and white. This is freeing for me. This is big Yeah, because people change Tell them and if he knows his job is to clean the toilet and he doesn’t do it for whatever reason, guess what? I mean, beat your head against the wall as much as you want folks out there, but the reality is, find yourself a new janitor. It’s much easier. So let’s say this, if I, to the person who’s watching this who might say, it sounds like what you’re being mean. What do you say to that? No, no, I’m not being mean. I’m being protective of the thing that should be one of the things that you’re most protective of and that’s your business. Your business is your livelihood. And without that, you’re not able to make your car payment, you’re not able to make your house payment, and you and your family, your wife and children, or husband and children, or life partner, or whatever you want to call the person in your life, will be homeless, and that’s not fun. So you have to look at this as no one is going to care about it as much as you do, and if you don’t care about it as much to make those hard decisions, and get rid of yawning Danny and Danny or Danny. He’s a janitor. I think and Billy the bad. But I mean if you don’t think enough of your business to prune it and to help it grow and mature and to find the right people that person isn’t the right fit. Guess what? Find somebody who is quit trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. It’s it’s sex for life out of you. Just thinking about it makes monkey fist in the back of my head. So If somebody isn’t working out, that’s okay You’ll find somebody else. Trust me. Okay, I Appreciate you for being here and sharing this I want to give one little stat the Gallup poll Did some research they should only 13% of America of America’s employees are actually engaged in their job. Meaning they actually care. 13%. And I say that to say that a lot of people out there are hiring people, and you’re kind of mean to someone in my mind. If you keep them working there and they don’t do a good job at the job, they’re probably gonna be good at something else. So we gotta quit feeling guilty about this. We just have to be candid all the time. And I appreciate you for sharing this because you’ve provided me a ton of clarity and I know a lot of entrepreneurs are just that black and white, it’s great. So thank you for your time. You bet, Clay. Thank you so much. You bet, appreciate you. Keep thriving. Yeah. Alright, 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. Whoa. And would you need profits to get there? I mean, when you have a business that’s successful and you’re in your mind your expert opinion would you need profits to get your to your 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 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 all the why would somebody out there who’s listening right now who has the same mind why would they not uh… go to thrive timeshare dot com forward slash credit dash card thrive timeshare dot 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. Now 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 ten 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. If 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. Hello, we getting that right buddy, we getting that right buddy. There’s probably some, someone out there, 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 throttletimeshow.com forward slash credit dash hard. Because you can compare rates, you can save money, and 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 three thousand dollars a year on average. I am at a loss 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. 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 ten 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 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 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. 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 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 know you money Oh, 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 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. We have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah. What we want to do is we want to share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now. I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminex, they’re both $1.3 billion companies. They both have 2,000 to 3,000 pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually non-existent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has, by being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts and staying on top of those podcasts to really help with their 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 Pest Salon 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%. So 411% we’re up with our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now our closing rate is about 85% and that’s largely due to, first of all, like our Google reviews that we’ve gotten. People really see that our customers are happy, but also we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one and done deal. It was a system that we followed with Thrive in the refining process and that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals and more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year, from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. And it’s incredible, but the reason why we have that success 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 so when 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, the diligence and consistency in doing those in that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives. And also, 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, they taught us those systems, they taught us the knowledge that we needed in order to succeed. Now it’s been a grind, absolutely it’s been a grind this last year, but we’re getting those fruits from that hard work and the diligent effort that we’re able to put into it. So again, we were in a rut, Thrive helped us get out of that rut, and if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s going to take in order to really succeed. 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 are 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% increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proof and turnkey marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983, and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello, my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. Clay’s 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 work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy is working every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Crockrell, 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, graphic designers, and web developers. They run 160 companies every single week. Think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. In the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every 6-8 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. 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. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So, amazing guy. Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. That’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. My most impressive thing was when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listened to it. When we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it. I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. And, um, anyways, just, just, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. Um, he’s helped navigate anytime I’ve gotten nervous or worried about, uh, how to run the company or, uh, you know, navigating competition and, and, and, and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to, how to get back open, how to, um, just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey, guys. I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys. We appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. Right. This is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? It was nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing. And this is our old team. And by team, I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from 4 to 14 and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman, so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place we’ve gone from one to ten locations in only a year. In October 2016 we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd. We’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you times a thousand. The Thrive Time 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 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 gonna leave energized, motivated, but you’re also gonna 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. 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, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses 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. It wouldn’t give you your money back if you don’t love it. We 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. It was 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 five clients to 20 clients on my own with networking, but I had no control over it. I didn’t, without the systems, you’re gonna 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. 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 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. Right. 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 100 calls. We make 200 to 300 calls a day per rep. And she’s been nailing down five and eight appointments a day 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 you bought 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 make I basically make the systems and You’re like the computer not like the software’s kind of how I would describe our relationship Tim I want to ask you this well you and I reconnected And I think it was in the year 2000 and what was it maybe 2010 is that right 2011 maybe or maybe even further down the road maybe 2013 2012 okay, so 2012 and at that time I had 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? There was some interaction where you and I first connected I just remember that somehow you and I went to Hideaway Pizza But 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. And 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. Working here, you can’t be a mediocre person. 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. 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, 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’d 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. 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 wanna 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 challenging yourself. Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.