Entrepreneur | Cat Juggling – How To Find The Time To Launch Your Startup

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrive Time 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 coming. 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. Started from the bottom, now we in. Started from the bottom, and that’s what we gotta do. All right, Thrivers, today we are joined here with Augustine, our Thriver of the Month. And you wrote a question which I thought was great, very real talk. You said, personally, I have my wife behind me. And while I have a full-time position, I only report to the off-site boss every two weeks to a month. So my autonomy and flexibility in my full-time position is medium to high. I’m moving toward a four-day, 10-hour-ish schedule, Monday through Thursday. They’re in order to reserve Friday and Saturday to fully focus on the business development. So what you’re saying is you’re actually working to work full-time and four days a week. So you have a couple days a week to work. Yeah that’s ideally what I’d like to do because I work at a university and I don’t know crazy thing about these professors they like having three-day weekends so we have very little going on on Friday which makes it perfect for me to just back away let things roll and focus a little bit better because what I’ve been doing is you know from a lot of the Thrive episodes that I’ve seen, you know, you’ve said to other people who have, you know, full-time kind of positions, hey, you got to work in at least 20 hours a week to focus on your business. And you know, I’ve got that popped in, you know, before I go to work, after I go to work, in small chunks and things like that. And it works okay, but it’s really tough when you’ve got distractions and that sort of thing. So I want to really focus in with larger chunks of time. Reason why I titled this segment, Cat Juggling, How to Find the Time to Launch a Startup, your startup, is that cat juggling is somewhat of an impossible thing. I mean, Steve Martin joked about it, but I don’t know that you could actually juggle cats. And I think that a lot of people feel like when they’re talking about finding time to make a startup, they feel like they’re trying to juggle a cat, as insane as it sounds. So here’s what I did. Here’s what I do. And this is what I recommend that you would do as well. Okay. Have you served in the military at all? No, I’ve not. Okay, well, several of my buddies have served in the military. Those of you watching who are military folks, you know what I’m talking about. But when you’re serving in the military, they’ve done all sorts of research on how much sleep you need, how much sleep you don’t need, what you need. You’re going to have to start to run your schedule until you transition with almost a military precision. So this is how it goes, OK? The average American right now is working 9 to 5. They’re working 44 hours a week or less, OK? This is all stuff. This is real stuff. Nielsen, the TV guy who does TV surveys, they’re saying the average person’s watching five hours of TV per day. Of TV per day. It’s crazy, okay? They’re on their social media, you know, social media, and again, there’s all sorts of stats you can look at, but I’m just going to go to the low end of all the research I’ve done, okay? One hour on social media, okay? Well, one, it’s amazing that we even have time to take a shower if we’re working 9 to 5 and we’re watching 5 hours of TV and we’re doing social media. So you’re going to have to begin to make a schedule that is optimized for success. I don’t even know how people come up with 5 hours of TV per day. That piece blows my mind, but maybe that’s just me. Well, I would say as a recovering jackass, I know what it’s like to watch five hours of TV. So it’s tough. You’ve got to stay dedicated. You’ve got to push through the pain. You’ve got to just make sure you’re in it to win it. But here’s what you’re going to have to do. You’re going to have to make a schedule. And those who are into the Judeo-Christian worldview will understand this. Those who are not, I’m going to talk about Elon Musk. So either way, we’ll get into it. You have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Everybody has 24 hours of time there. To start a successful company, you’re going to have to find pockets of undivided, uninterrupted time at which you can focus on this, focus on your startup, but you also cannot be doing it on your boss’s time. You can’t be working on your startup while you’re at your job. One, it’s not ethical, and two, because you’re not going to do either one well. So what I have found, for me, is I like to go from like 3 a.m. until like 7 a.m. I find that nobody ever calls me between 3 a.m. and 7. I never get a call from a guy, I say never, this week I got a call from a guy who’s screwing with me because he knows that I’m up at that time. But usually 3 a.m. to 7, I don’t get any calls. So I am completely available. And guess what? My kids don’t miss me. Because they’re not awake either. And guess what? My wife doesn’t miss me. So I go to bed, check it out, I get home, I hang out with my kids, so I get home, you know, I’m just throwing an example, I’m home around 6, right? I hang out with my kids, put the kids down, and if I go to bed at nine o’clock if I’m going to sleep, so nine o’clock is when it’s my night time. Nine o’clock is when I’m going to sleep. If I do that from nine to three, how much time is that? Six hours. So I find for me, I need six hours of sleep. You might need ten. You might need eight. I don’t know how many hours you need, but just ask yourself, how many hours do you need? Yeah. And I find that if I go to bed at nine and I get up at three, that’s all I need. And then I’ve got four uninterrupted hours to get stuff done. Now, maybe a thriver watching this goes, there’s no way, bro. There’s no way I would do that. Bro, bro, bro, I will not get up at 3 AM. Fine. The other option is you say, after I put my kids to bed, I’m going to work from 9 AM or 9 PM to maybe midnight every night. But you have to find an undivided pocket of time. Okay? And I’m gonna submit, I know this sounds a little harsh, but I’m gonna submit you’re gonna need at least 15 to 20 hours of time to work on your business while working in your job. You have to find an extra 20 hours somewhere. Now another option that I see a lot of people do, and by the way, Jill Donovan, one of our Thrive mentors, she did the whole late night deal. I like the early morning. Dr. Zellner did the whole late night deal. I like the early morning. You can do whatever you want. Lee Cockrell, our Thrive mentor, he does the morning. Just whatever works for you. Another move I did when I was working, because I worked at Applebee’s, I worked at Target, I had all different jobs. One thing you can do is you can just do Saturday, and you can say Saturday is my all day. So I’m going to work from Saturday. I’m gonna work from 6 a.m. To 6 p.m. On Saturday, I’m gonna put in 12 hours of power on Saturday Boom, that’s my day. And what and how does this tie into that whole Judeo-Christian thing? I was referencing in the whole well in the Bible that controversial book it talks about Genesis how God created the earth in six days He rested on the seventh. The idea was that they’re trying to teach us the principle that basically it takes six days to create things now FDR So let’s talk about this. I’m going to get into this real quick Okay, so when the pilgrims came here when the pilgrims came here, huh? When John Rockefeller started his Empire When Walt Disney started his empire when Steve Jobs started his empire, when Tesla and we’ll go with Elon Musk got going here, okay? These are just some examples. And then let’s go with when God started his whole thing. So were the pilgrims going, well it’s 44 hours, I’m going on break. Don’t think so. No, they had to build a freaking house before the winter, plant enough corn to survive. They did whatever the heck they had to do to make it. So they did not work 44 hours. Cool? Cool. Rockefeller, was he going, well, it’s been 44 hours, I’m going to go home, I’m on break. Don’t think so. No. So Rockefeller did not work 44 hours. Walt Disney, was he like, well, it’s been, you know, I’m off the clock, it’s been 44 hours. Nope. Nope. All of these people believe in this thing called the 6th day principle. Steve Jobs, who is not a Judeo-Christian, guess what? He did not work 44 hours a week. Tesla, Elon Musk, he didn’t work 44 hours a week. God, rumor has it, God was working 6 days. So all of these people benefit from this thing called the sixth day principle. Now here is the poverty creation system. If you want to guarantee yourself poverty and mediocrity, what you’re going to want to do is work 44 hours a week or less. So what happened is for the history of mankind, successful people have always put in the six-day principle. They’ve always done it. And then FDR, our fabulous president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, bless his soul, some of you watching might love him, some of you might not like the guy, he said, nope, that’s it, insert timeline, I have decided with the Fair Labor Act we are now going to work 44 hours per week. That is the maximum that you can work, you know, as an employee. Remember, the point is, that’s what he came up with. So now, for some reason, Americans and people all over the planet believe that from this point forward, that they’re going to try to be successful in 44 hours. It’s not possible. It has never happened. It is never going to happen. Now, here’s what’s really cool, is once you achieve success, once you get to that level, check it out. So you have this thing called sweat equity. So when you first start your business, and this is what I want to show you, you’re going to have a ton of time you have to work. You’re going to have very little money. But at some point, this is going to change, where you’re going to have very little time, and you’re going to have gobs of money. And at some point, when that switch happens, guess what you can do? You can start to pay people to do different jobs and then work less. One of my very very dear friends prides himself on not working more than six hours a week. That’s like his whole deal. It’s bizarre to me. But he gets up at a kind of a weird time, he has all these things he does, he works one hour a day and that’s it. So it is totally possible. But this unicorn chasing delirium that hey, everybody, the pilgrims who founded this country, Rockefeller who built the big empire, Disney, Jobs, Elon Musk, God, they all worked six days. So this idea here is that we’re going to have to find a way to do it. But we also want to do is we do not want to neglect our health, we don’t want to neglect our families, we don’t want to neglect our jobs. That is why you got to look at your calendar right now as homework and block off, find yourself 15 to 20 hours a week. I know it doesn’t affect you but and probably anybody watching this, I know the Thrivers would never actually do this, but for other people, if you’re watching five hours of TV a day, you’re screwed. Yeah. I mean that’s just a bad spot. Hopefully it’s a great show, but you can’t get ahead. If you’re willing to spend an hour or two hours a day on social media, unless that’s your job, unless you get paid to do that, you’re just not going to get ahead. Does that make sense? Uh-huh. As far as balancing all that, do you have any questions as we kind of look at your calendar or anything as far as implementation where you go, how do you do that? Now, between 3 and 7, how are you using your time in that window? Sure, that’s great. That’s a good question. So what I do when I get up at three, is every single day at three, your mind is what your mind is fed, okay? So you might call this brain food. I’m also going to call this your thrive time. The reason why we built thrive15.com is so that people who are not sick freaks like myself who don’t love reading case studies for fun. Some people like golfing or going on vacations. I like reading case studies. The idea on Thrive is you can take a whole bunch of information and consolidate it into a very quick, bite-sized 15-minute training and then go about your business. I take the first hour of every day, minimum of 15 minutes, but it’s usually 15 minutes to an hour, and I read every single day. So specifically, just to kind of walk you through what I’m doing right now this morning, right now I’m reading a really, really, really terrible report on some Google updates they’re doing for search engine optimization. It takes me a full hour to read that. It is terrible, but I have to do it to stay relevant, to learn my craft, whatever. So I take the first hour of my day, 15 minutes to an hour, and I am reading or studying, okay? Then, that next hour, what I do is I think about where I am versus where I’m at, and I make my to-do list. And my to-do list is kind of unique because I have a lot of people who work on my team, and therefore I have to delegate things to other people, where when you’re starting, you’ll have a big to-do list for yourself but you want to think about all the things you need to get done that day. The third thing that I do is I prioritize that list. So I begin to say and if you go back and watch our time management trains with Lee Cockrell he gets really specific on this. But I determine what has to be done, I think about when I need to do it, and who needs to do it. I just began to build that schedule. So yesterday I was like, well what I’m going to do is when I get home, I’m going to take my kids out to Barbie Cookies, we’re going to have some ice cream cookies. I’m going to take my wife and I to Tiamo’s because one of our Thrive members, TL O’Dell, he was performing at Tiamo’s restaurant. He’s a musician. I wanted to hear him play. I also made a note, I need to call this client about this. I need to follow up on this lease. I need to book this speaking event. I knew you were coming to town, so I had to write our outlines. So I think of all those things. I put them all on the schedule. And then the next thing that I do, and this is just stuff that I do, I have to motivate myself. So the thing is, most people view that they kind of be kind of we kind of judge people if they’re not motivated Yeah, we start to kind of put labels on them. Like well, you’re just not motivated. Oh, he’s really motivated. They’ll say Augustine is so energetic Sarah though. She’s such a moper. No, so we start to put labels But the key to motivation is motivation is just like a shower Yeah, every single day you have to take a shower at least the days you don’t want to smell bad So the days you want to be successful you have to be motivated So what I’ve found that motivates me and this is not this you got to ask yourself. What motivates you? What is it? Okay, you got to motivate yourself. You have to motivate yourself for me. What motivates me is John legend Sam Smith These are singers. Sam Smith, John Legend. I like orchestral scores, you know, to movies. I like that. And I listen to T.D. Jakes. And I do it every single day. So, when I’m headed to work, I’m listening to my John Legend, my T.D. Jakes. And when I get to work, it’s such a white-hot level of enthusiasm that I’m ready to conquer the day. So, every day I get up, I do my reading, I do my to-do list, I prioritize, I motivate. That’s what I do. And you’ve got to find a rhythm for yourself that works. And it takes me, for me, about three hours every single day to get through all these things. Every day. Does that make sense? Yeah. Any other questions about that at all? Or is that pretty much clarified for you? I think that’s pretty good. In terms of work at working out? Yeah, I think like that. Yeah. Now the thing is I’ll just be honest with you as you go through life You’re gonna have different seasons. Mm-hmm. And so What you’ll do is you might say like right now like because for thrive it’s a bizarre time for us because I’m doing a lot Of speaking events. Yeah, like my wife and I we have five kids We really don’t want to do more than like two or three events a month But I think two months ago we did like eight. So we were traveling, we were in Toronto, we were in Tampa, we were in California, we were everywhere. So right now, you know, I go on walks with my wife and I don’t get to do the routine that I like to. However, kind of in the next couple months here as we transition out of that speaking cycle, you know, then we’re into a time where we can have that, have more balance. And I’ll just tell you this, the way life is, is you look at this and you say, you have these five categories, okay? You have your spirit, your mind, your body, your relationships, and your finances. And there’s going to be a time in your life where you’re going to have to focus a lot. You want to keep them all in balance if you can. If you view it as like, hey, I got to try to balance all these plates, that’s great. You got to juggle all these plates. You’ve got to balance this all. But there will be some times where you’re spending a huge amount of time on your spiritual development. You’re spending a ton on your mental development, learning new skills. Like you might be going back to college or school where you’re on Thrive every day for like a month just trying to really get it. You’re focused on your finances and you’re really focused on relationships. You might go, you know what, for that month I can’t work out for this particular month the way I want to yeah, and you go well That’s not really sustainable well, then the next month you go. You know what I got to get that together I’m so now you’re focused on your fitness. You’re really getting the fitness going here. You’re really focusing on your mental development You’re really doing that spiritual development and finances. You’re like right now. I just got to run this business I’ve already made the performa I know it’s gonna spit out some cash, but I don’t have a ton of time to focus on that right now, because I still want to have that relationship with my kids. What I would argue for you is if you lose your health, if you lose your health, then you’re going to also lose your wealth. If you lose your relationships, you’re also going to lose, I mean, you want to cut your net worth in half, get divorced. So the thing is, what you want to do is you want to make sure that you’re trying to balance all those. But I will tell you, whatever you do not schedule time for here, as we go back to this, whenever you don’t schedule time for, won’t happen. Okay. Make sense? Yeah. So that is the answer, my friend. Okay. Awesome. Hopefully that helps you feel a little less crazy, a little more doable, and it really is possible to manage the full-time job and the startup. You can do it. I’m just going to require some pig-headed discipline. All right, JT, so hypothetically, in your mind, what is the purpose of having a business? To get you to your goals. So it’s a vehicle to get you to your destination. And would you need profits to get there? I mean, when you have a business that’s successful, in your expert opinion, would you need profits to get you to your goals? Yeah, because if you have a $15 million business, but you have $15 million 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 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 they not go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card to schedule a 10 minute consultation to see if they can reduce their credit card fees by at least 3,000 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, so that can be true. So I would 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 can save $3,000 or more on credit card fees? Maybe they think it is a waste of time and then it won’t. It’s not possible. There’s somebody out there that’s making more than three thousand dollars every ten minutes and they’re like, nah, that’s not worth my time. We getting there, right buddy? There’s probably some someone out there that would think that. Well I’ll just tell you folks, if you’re out there today and you’re making less than three thousand dollars per ten minutes I would highly recommend that you go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash hard. Because you can compare rates, you can save money and you know the big the big goal and in my opinion of building a business is to create time freedom and financial freedom and in order to do that you have to maximize your profits holy crap now one way to maximize your profits is to increase your revenue another way to do it is to decrease your expenses It’s a profit deal. It takes the pressure off. JT, is there any other reason why somebody would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they could save a total of $3,000 a year on average? I am at a loss and I cannot think of any other. Shampoo is better. I go on first and clean the hair. Conditioner is better. I leave the hair silky and smooth. Oh really fool, really. Stop looking at me swan. Let me tell you a good story here real quick. I actually years ago compared rates with this company here called IPS. It’s Integrated Payment Services and I scheduled a consultation. I don’t know 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 particular case, I save over $20,000 a year. Holy crap! Wow. Which is like groceries when my wife goes to the organic stores. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great. Okay. Oh, God. Everything okay, ma’am? It’s just that you’ve only scanned a few items and it’s already 60 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, 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 a free consultation, request information, a member of our team will call you, they’ll schedule a free consultation. It should take you 10 minutes or less, and they’re going to compare rates and see if they can’t save you more than $3,000 a year off of your credit card processing. You were hoping what? I wouldn’t owe you money at the end of the day. No, you don’t owe us money. Because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the goal of the business is to create time, freedom and financial freedom. In order to do that, you need to create additional profits. The number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. We are Jared and Jennifer Johnson. We own Platinum Pest and Lawn and are located in Owasso, Oklahoma. And we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah. So what we want to do is we want to share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now. Okay? I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminex, they’re both $1.3 billion companies. They both have 2,000 to 3,000 pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually nonexistent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has, by being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts, and staying on top of those podcasts to really help with getting up on what they’re listing and ranking there with Google. And also we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, you know, asking our customers for reviews, and now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pessamon company in the Tulsa area. And that’s really helped with our conversion rate. And the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411%. Okay, so 411% we’re up with our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now our closing rate is about 85% and that’s largely due to, first of all, like our Google reviews that we’ve gotten. People really see that our customers are happy, but also we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one and done deal. We, it was a system that we, that we followed with Thrive and in the refining process. And that has obviously, the 411% shows that that, that that system works. Yeah. So here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals, more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year, from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. It’s incredible. But the reason why we have that success is by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews. That way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists. Everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast like Jared had mentioned that has really, really contributed to our success. But that, like I said, the diligence and consistency in doing those in that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives. And also, you know, it’s really shown that we’ve gotten a success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive, we were basically stuck. Really no new growth with our business. And we were in a rut. And we didn’t know. 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 wanna give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore, I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40% to 42% 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 services, you’re choosing to use a proven turnkey marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983, and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello, my name is Charles Colal with Colalaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee 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 to 8 weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every 6 to 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. 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, organizing everything in their head to building 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. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. I was really most impressed with him is when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it, I’m going to turn it down, because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. And the guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. And anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate. Anytime I’ve got nervous or worried about how to run the company or, you know, navigating competition and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9 and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you, and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. This is where we used to live. This is our old neighborhood. You can 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 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 Thrivetime Show, two-day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13-point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. When we get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re gonna 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 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 system 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 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 gotta inspire somebody out there who just doesn’t have the time to listen to their phone. 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 rollercoaster. 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. Now 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 yeah 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 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 turns into sales. Well I tell you you know it’s 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 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 script. What’s so she’s making how many calls a day? She’s making between two and three hundred calls a day and our relationship is weird in that we do, if someone were to buy an Apple computer today, and or let’s say about a personal computer, a PC, the computer is made by, let’s say, Dell. But then the software in the computer would be Microsoft, let’s say, or Adobe or whatever that is. So I basically make the systems and you’re like the computer and I’m like the software. It’s kind of how I would describe our relationship. Tim, I want to ask you this. You and I reconnected, I think it was in the year 2010, maybe 2011, maybe 2013? 2012. Okay, so 2012. And at that time I was five years removed from the DJ business. And you were how many years removed from tax and accounting software? It was about 10, 11 years. We met, how did we meet? What was the first interaction? 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 as 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. You know, 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. 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 a 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 and 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 about three or four months just from being around Clay, following him and learning from him. And months just from being around Clay, following him and learning from him. And then I would say come coachable. Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.